Page 85 of My Lovely Tragedy
“Don’t have to pretend anymore.” I speak the words against him, hating the soft scratch of cotton against my face. Wishing it was his skin instead.
“What is it I have been pretending?”
“To care about things you don’t.I see you.” I tug at the chain, drawing his attention to it. I feel the dip of his chin, the scrape of his facial hair against my head. His small intake of breath, followed by a long, drawn-out exhale. Settling into acceptance.
An arm hooks beneath my knees, another against my back. My head knocks against the counter as he jerks me into him, pushing to his feet. He trembles from the strain, but he never drops me. Only holds me tighter.Forever.
He carries me across the open space until his shins hit the front of the couch. And then, I’m soaring through the air, steel smacking together, golden hair billowing around me. I grunt when I hit the cushions, eyes wide as Tobias climbs over the arm and settles between my spread legs.
Tobias sits on his haunches, my thighs resting on his, feet against his back. His hands shake as he curls his fingers around my ankles, just beneath the cuff of my sweatpants. I shiver at his illicit touch.
He moves his palms up, bringing the material with him. A slow drag of smooth skin. Once his hands reach my knees, the material bunched just above the bone, he curls his fingers around until the pads settle at the soft, sensitive underside. They dig in.
I suck in a breath, holding it, lungs expanded. Heart thundering within, blood chugging heavily in my veins. Drugging and pulling.
Tobias’s maroon eyes devour me, glasses long lost in their bare reflection. “Tobias…” I whisper. He rolls his lips between his teeth, gaze never wavering. His grip tightens. Becomes bruising. I flex my muscles, asking for more. Less. Nothing and everything.
“I know,” he murmurs, like we’re both afraid words will shatter whatever…this is.The sharpsnickof metal steals my attention. I look between it and him…Tobias.I hold my arms out to him—an offering of skin. Bared and exposed, desperate to bleed. To be marked and scarred by his hands.
His eyes flicker to my arms, my eyes, down my throat where I’m sure another mark of his lingers. More aching. More memories I’ll hate tomorrow.
The light catches on the gold as he draws near, a whisper away. Blade glinting, knuckles blanched. Silver scrapes—a vow.
“Promise me you’ll regret this. That you’ll regret me.”
My nose burns as my eyes fill with more tears. I blink desperately, trying to clear the path to him, but maybe… maybe he was meant to be viewed at a distortion. Never quite right but never wrong.Perception and intention.
Pure, undiluted desperation.
What I want and what I hate.
“You’ll be my favorite.”
And then, the blade sinks into my skin, searing every thought from my brain that isn’t him and this. Us and now and whatever we are until the sand settles.
And I think, if this is how we end, bloody and weeping and exposed…
There would be no better way.
A blood sport for the ages.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
TOBIAS
He bleeds so beautifully.
It’s an elegance. Watching his lifeblood flow from slits within his skin, each one deeper than the last. Exposing everything he is underneath: bloody and broken and mine.
My own essence screams in agony from where it flows within the confines of my own veins. Searching him out. Vying to be with him.
One in the same.
But I do not give in. Not yet—I can’t.
…I shouldn’t.
His eyes roll behind closed lids, arms limp at his sides. His legs have long since lost their tension, now pliant where they lie across my own.
