Page 200 of Eternal
My hands are still bleeding from all the things I broke in my house, and I’m so damn tired, but I can’t look away from him. Not when he’s here, like this, not when he’s so fucking close, and all I want is to make him feel everything he’s made me feel.
His eyes fell on my hands first when he pulled back to catch his breath. He’s seeing them, raw, bloody from the glass I shattered. They tremble when I try to pull away, but he’s faster, his grip tightening around my wrists.
He doesn’t speak right away, but I can hear it in his breath. He’s pissed. No, he’s fuming. He’s disgusted with me maybe, with the mess I’ve made of myself because I felt betrayed.
But that’s not all I see in him. He leans in closer, his lips barely brushing my ear, his voice low and rough, “You’re mad?” His words come out in a wave of rage, raw and guttural. “You’ve destroyed yourself, and for what? For me? Because I lied? Or for you?”
I see it in the way his hands hover over the damage I’ve done to myself, like he’s disgusted with me but can’t stop himself from touching the bruises on my wrists, the cuts on my palms.
I want to scream at him, tell him to leave, but something in the way he’s looking at me, like I’m the last thing he’s got left tocare about stops me. His fingers are soft, too soft for a man who should be out to kill me, for someone who’s seen me at my worst.
And in a twisted way, it makes me want to tear him apart, to make him hurt like I’m hurting.
He leans in and kisses me again, no warning, just the force of it. His lips are sweet, he might be bruising my lips not that I’d care. Even as his body presses against mine, I can feel him trembling, like he’s trying to hold back, but the need to have me is stronger than any of the blood pooling on his stomach.
“Go on,” he says between kisses, his voice rougher now. “Try to finish it. Try to kill me again. I don’t care. I’ll take it.” His lips move lower, his teeth grazing my neck, like he’s claiming me in a way that’s far more dangerous than any mission we’ve ever been on.
“You fucking lied to me.” I want to scream harder, but instead, all that comes out is a strangled sound, like a moan. Am I insane? Am I fucking insane?
“You’re not the only one who’s hurt here,” he mutters against my skin. “I’m bleeding for you. But I’ll keep coming back. I always come back. Because you fucking poisoned me.”
His breath is sharp against my ear, his tone changing,
But then his hand slides over my wrist, pressing hard on his stomach, and I can feel the bandage beneath my touch, reminding me of what I did to him. On the cut of his chest that I inflicted. And I’m furious, but I’m also tired. I'm so tired of this, so tired of him, and then the words spill out before I can stop them. “I fucking hate you.”
The words barely left my mouth before his lips found my neck again, trailing slowly up to my jaw, then finally to my lips.
Then he murmured, “I hate you too,partner, so much that it shouldn't even be allowed. Hate you for making me weak like that, weak to touch you, weak to take care of you.”
I kissed him back, and it wasn’t gentle, it was desperate. Like ten months of silence, longing, and pretending hadn’t just broken, theydetonated. My whole body went inflamed, like I'd swallowed a spark and it lit me from the inside.
This. Us, whatever the hell it was, was a fucking mess. A disaster. A stupid fucking thing that would’ve never be something more. And yet, here I was, in the wreckage, kissing the man who had lied to me from the start, because he was me, my mirror, my reflection.
And I hated it. I hated him for showing me what I refused to see.
He was broken, lonely, and angry. Just a pawn in a mission, like me.
And still, his hands were in my hair, his body against mine, his lips telling me things I didn’t want to hear. That he wanted to take care of me while lying all along, that he’d let me destroy him if it meant he could keep me. That this, us, was inevitable.
And the worst part? I think I believed him.
“Azra…” he breathed, his hands sliding dangerously down my back. “You had me the moment you appeared in my life. Do you think the fact that you hate me would ever keep me from you?”
I shook my head, feeling the ghost of a smile on his lips as he traced a silent threat along my skin. “You’ll never let me leave, will you?”
The warmth of his grin was almost cruel against the coolness of my skin, like a mark on me that wouldn’t fade. “Never.”
I should push him away, I should finish what I started. I failed trying to end him tonight, I should try again, but I can't.
His lips linger on mine, and for a moment, I close my eyes, letting the chaos of the world fade into the background of this whole mess. His breath is warm against my skin, and I hate how much I crave it. I hate how much I need him to keep mefrom falling apart. He pulls away, just enough to look at me, and there's a twisted smile on his lips, one that I can't decide if it’s malicious or genuine. “You missed this didn’t you? Me touching you even the slightest, me looking at you like I want you more than anything. Tell me you missed this.”
I don’t answer, I can’t, I’m afraid of what he’ll do if I do.
His hand reaches up, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear, but the touch is too gentle for what I know is coming. The braid is between his fingers, and he let them there.
My breath hitches when his hand slides up my thigh, his fingertips brushing against the soft fabric of my skin.
I hate how easily I respond to him, how my body betrays me even when my mind screams for control.
