Page 60 of The Bronze Garza
“What, Torin?” I ask just above a whisper.
Nothing.
“You want me to say it for you? Okay, I will,” I hiss, heated. “You want my body, but you hate yourself for it. So much so that you can’t even come while you jerk off thinking of me. Because how could you have possibly allowed yourself to fall in lust with a bought-and-sold whore.”
“Shut up,” he bites out, jaw tight.
“What? You don’t like how the truth sounds out loud?”
In the next second, he’s on his feet and towering over me, eyes blazing. He’s furious. “Shut the fuck up with that shit right now, Lyra.”
“Or what?”
His hard, raging eyes fall to my lips and linger there.
“Go,” he grits out, “before I fuckingmakeyou stay.”
Still, he doesn’t let go of me.
Make me stay.
Please, make me stay.
I’m yours if you’ll have me.
I’m a fool for you. Take advantage of me.
Slowly, one loosening finger at a time, he releases me.
My chest lifts and falls with a dispirited sigh.
As I turn to leave, I mutter, “Coward.”
When I’m almost out the door, he shots back, “So are you.”
ChapterSixteen
“You die in the end.”
Lyra
“Can I ask you something, Reuben?”
The gate security at Barefoot Runaway B&B slips him a numbered card after checking his ID, then waves us through.
“Fire away.”
“It’s about Girl Number 7,” I say.
“What about her?”
“You said she’s happily married with a baby on the way, right?”
“Correct.”
“Do you think her husband knows about her past?” I ask. “Like, maybe she hid that dark truth about herself so he’d love her for who she is and wouldn’t...I don’t know, see her as damaged goods.” I blow out a frustrated breath at my inarticulate ramble. “I guess what I want to know is if you think there’s hope for a woman with a man who knows...well, everything. Every sordid detail of her past. Like, with what happened to Girl Number 7 or me, as a man, is that somethingyoucould ever get past?”
His answer is immediate. “Yes.”
