Page 71 of Filthy Love

She was getting tired of fighting both the world around them and Hawk.

Maybe he was showing her glaring clues he didn’t really want her after all.

“Stop right now. Gia.” She found her face grasped in his two hands, bringing her attention to the man towering over her. “Don’t put that fucking word on your tongue, are you hearing me? It’s me who is the piece of shit, me who isn’t good enough. I don’t want to drag you down to my level.”

“MY choice where I go and who I do it with, you don’t get to decide that.” She glanced around, but his thumb stroking her cheekbone brought her back to him. He had so much kept behind his eyes, so much he wouldn’t share with her.

“Don’t you ever get tired of being a sanctimonious jerk? You can pretend and lie to yourself all you want that you don’t want me, but don’teverdecide what is best for me, Hawk. Only I know that. If I want to roll around on the floor stark naked with the entire college football team and then go back for seconds I will because the last time I checked I was grown-ass woman more than capable to make my own choices of who I fuck and share my body with.”

An almighty rattle came out of that massive chest that quite frankly stunned her silent.

Not fearful exactly, she was always safe with Hawk but manoh man, he was looking like thunder.

“Say that again.” The words dripped from thinned out lips.

Eyes rounded. “W-which part? I said quite a lot, I can’t remember it verbatim.”

“You want to get naked and fuck a lot of someone’s, little bit? Is that what you’re telling me?”

She threw her stubborn chin up, glared at him. “Sure, why not, you don’t want to fuck me, that’s what you said. You get no say thereafter of who I have sex with be it multiple times or with hundreds of men.”

She’d poked the beast and the beast was snarling.

He took an excessive number of deep inhales then lifted his big blond head and hit her with two beams of blue.

“If you thought I was overprotective and possessive before, you have no idea how bad it can get. Are you ready for that?”

No words would come out of her mouth. She blinked.

“You're giving me an inch, Gia? Think about what you’re doing. I'll take a fucking mile. You have no idea how goddamn possessive I am over every part of you. Body, mind and fucking soul. Don't decide something you can't take back, because the moment it's made your choices are; me. That's it. There's nothing else.”

Hawk made her dizzy. His back and forth gave her whiplash. His every word floated around her skull. Her nerve ending buzzed like bees and she couldn't catch a full breath.

She'd spent some of her adolescence and all her adult life in love with this man never truly knowing him. Wanting him and willing to give up everything for him if he'd only given her one vantage of a sign he wanted her in return.

But it never came.

And for years she took crumbs when he deemed her important enough to reply pithily at the messages she sent his way.

She should be filled with joy at his declaration. it was, after all, everything she'd dreamed of for years but still it came with a side order threat of yet again what was best for her.

Her birthday candle wishes, her Christmas eve wishes, he was always it.

But as her heart soared, she looked at him, really looked … realization slammed her hard.

He was still warning her off him.

******

Hawk felt ill. All he wanted to do was fall to his knees and worship her. To accept every scrap, she wanted him to have. To be whatever she needed him to be.

Couldn’t she see he said everything for her own good. To save her from the fucking monster waiting to prey on her. She was his one and only moral compass.

If left to him he would use her up until all her goodness was gone.

He swallowed, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

This was why he couldn’t be around her.

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