Page 88 of Manhattan Tormentor

I almost laugh. Instead, I snatch the trash and shove it in the sack and take it outside to the dumpster. He’s not on the couch when I come back. He’s taken off his jacket and is waiting for me like a vulture.

My heart rams into my ribs, his taste is still in my mouth. The same taste I’ve tried for months to forget.

When he advances, it’s not my eyes he’s looking at. He skims his gaze over my mouth. Without warning, he runs his thumb over the faded white scar on my forehead. It’s a reminder that while I was in the hospital, he was nowhere around. He wanted me then. He wants me now, but it’s always his way.

I knock his hand away but he doesn’t move, in fact he steps in until our bellies press together. “I still see you sprawled on the road. You looked broken up.” His hand drops to the hip I injured, and he squeezes gently. “How’s this doing?”

I blink, confused. “How do you know I fucked up my hip? You weren’t around afterward. I got knocked down by a car and youleft.”

He sighs, lowering his head. When it comes back up, his steel-cut eyes pierce me. He moves in closer until I see every fleck of his irises. His hands move around my waist.

“I was there. Your dad warned me away. He was right,” he speaks before I can say anything. “I was no good for you, Fierro. I’ve been a hate-filled, moody bastard for so long and I don’t know if I can make up for all the shit, but I want you to give me the chance to try.” When I stare, he rushes his mouth forward and kisses me hard—hard enough that I’m breathing heavily when he pulls back. “I was at the hospital for the few days you were there, I watched all your family come and go. You’ve got a big family, Fierro.”

“Yeah,” I agree.

“They love you a lot. I broke my ankle when I was eight, the housekeeper took me to the hospital.”

“Fuck,” I hiss and he shakes his head like it’s nothing. It’s not nothing if he was a kid alone.

“I parked outside your therapy twice a week so I could see you. You hobbled on the crutch like a pro after a few days,” Finn half-grins. “I didn’t deserve you, not then, I was a motherfucker, Sage, but I still needed to see that you were okay.”

“Why were you a dick to me?”

“Will you believe if I said it was because I was into you?”

I puff a laugh in his face. “Are you yanking my hair on the playground?”

“That’s your thing, you little hair puller. It’s my fucked up truth though.”

“We were good together until you got scared. I would have been patient. Iwaspatient. You only had to tell me you needed time. Instead, you were a cruel dick.”

“I know.”

“Now you’re fine being queer?”

“I don’t know what I am,” he replies in an even tone, his eyes searching my face. “I know I’m into you. I saw you one day, and it was like you punched me in the chest. I couldn’t cope with what I was feeling.”

“For a guy.”

He nods. “Not just any guy.For you, Sage. Only for you. Wanna take a guess at how many men I’ve looked at in the last nine months?”

My entire body tenses. I had to wonder about his manslut status with girls, I don’t want to add men into that too. Finn is handsome enough, cocky enough, he can have anyone he sets his eyes on, that’s a fact.

“I looked at men with fresh eyes and you know what happened? Nothing, Sage. Not a fucking thing. I’m still attracted to women. And you.”

My forehead drops over my eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“My total of queerness is you. You’re the only man I’m into, who I find so fucking sexy. You’re the only man I wanna fuck and touch and be with.”

“Lucky me,” I snark. All the while, my heart jumps ahead of my breaths when he hooks me around the back of my neck and draws my face in. I knock off his cap and pull on the front of his hair to stop him going for my mouth, and he grins like he knew I’d go for the hair.

“No. Lucky me. And when I stopped being a prick—”

“And an asshole.”

He smirks a devastating grin, “yeah, that too. I admitted to myself that I want to be with you. So, against all the fucking odds and the fact I’m probably gonna screw it up, I want a chance, Fierro, to make it right.”

There is a swell of something in my throat. Hope. And want.

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