Page 43 of Ravaged
No fair. He’s not playing fucking fair.
Now, I retreat, physically and emotionally. One step. Two. And another one. Until my ass hits the opposite cabinet and the counteredge digs into my lower back. And all along, I stare at him, at the chiseled lines and indecent curves of his face, at the broad, big perfection of his body, and I curl in on myself. Protecting myself from anything else that will slip out of his mouth.
From one instant to the next, I’m transported to another time when a man I wanted to believe in, when a beautiful man who held me in his thrall, used pretty words. Used lies. And then betrayed me in the most brutal way with them.
For the first time since meeting Jordan, I don’t trust him.
His electric-blue gaze narrows, tracking each of my movements, and he shifts forward, but I shove a hand out, silently ordering him to stop.
“I don’t know what the fuck this is, but I don’t play games. If I didn’t inform you of that in the beginning, then let me make it crystal clear now.”
“Games?” He frowns, and though my hand is still up, he edges forward again. Not close enough to touch me but nearer so I catch the flash of confusion and embers of fire in his eyes. He’s angry? Good. That makes two of us. “What the hell are you talking about, Miriam?”
“I miss you?” I repeat, throwing his words back at him on a low hiss. “When did that revelation hit you? When you were sending me to voice mail for the fifth, tenth time? When you texted me yet another excuse about being too busy? Or when you walked in here tonight and realized since your best friend is marrying my sister, ghosting me might not be as simple as you thought?” Curling my fingers around the counter rim, I shake my head, another caustic chuckle escaping me, even though I try to trap it. “Bullshit wrapped up in a pretty bow doesn’t make it stink any less. And thatI miss you? Utter bullshit.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. And this time, when he moves forward, he doesn’t stop. Not until the wide wall of his chest presses against my palm.
“Jordan—” My fingers involuntarily curl against that dense muscle, and I grind my teeth together, fighting the heat of battle and lust. He’s armed with not just that voice, face, and body but his scent, his dominance.
My fucking weakness.
“Sweetheart, look at me. Please.”
I reluctantly drag my gaze from over his shoulder at some distant, blurry point to meet his. Not because he asked, but pride insists I do. Especially when my heart does this humiliating, fluttery thing in my chest at his low, silkensweetheart. The fickle organ shouldn’t get too excited. I’ve heard him call women who served him beers the same thing. It’s not unique. It’s not special.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. More insistent. With a fervor that tugs on an achy place low inside me. “I thought I was doing the right thing by stepping back, giving you space. Giving you and ... Daniel space to get to know one another.”
Shock rips through my hurt and anger like a fissure, and frozen, I stare up at him, temporarily uncomprehending.
Maybe he reads my bemusement, because he shakes his head. “Sweetheart, no man—no matter how good friends they are—is down with another one hanging around the woman he wants for himself. If you two were going to have an honest, strong chance, you didn’t need to be splitting your time with me. And you would’ve never seen it that way. So I decided to place some distance there myself. So you wouldn’t have to.”
“Let me get this straight.” The anger rushes back, burning the shock and confusion to ashes. Good. Anger’s good. “You believed I couldn’t manage my time between a potentially new relationship and a friendship, regardless that I’ve been managing my whole life for some years now.” He winces, but I don’t give a fuck. “You also took it upon yourself to make a decision for the both of us instead of talking to me. Ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t want anything to do with a man so insecure hewould be threatened by my friendship with another guy. A friendship that predated him. Do I have all that right?”
He sighs, tunneling a hand through his hair and tugging the strands away from his face. “Fuck. It sounds so much worse when you say it.”
“You’re lying,” I state flatly. Baldly. “There’s something else you’re hiding from me, because the man I’ve been friends with, the man I’ve known, is not that stupid or disrespectful. You’re the same person who worried over stealing my voice, my choices. Either you’re flat-out lying to me, or there’s more to this.”
His mouth thins, and he glances away. Sorrow threads through my anger, and in that moment, the heaviness of it sits on my chest. Because he’s not going to be truthful with me. Lie, evade, refuse ... he’s preparing to do one of those, and I won’t be able to deal with that. Not from him.
“Maybe you’re not the only one who fears being left, rejected,” he almost snarls at me. The air snags in my lungs at the embers that have struck to flames in his eyes. “Because that’s what’s behind this, isn’t it, Miriam? Abandonment issues? I get your past, your childhood. Being who you are wasn’t easy. People who probably lied and called themselves friends, then proved they weren’t when it came time to claim the school genius as their buddy. That wouldn’t earn them any cool points. And kids can be little shits when it comes to being popular over integrity. And then your parents. Good people, but when it comes to insight and unconditional acceptance of their children ... well, let’s just say if insight were lard, they wouldn’t have enough between them to grease a pan.” He edges forward, crowding me even though he still doesn’t touch me. But his words—his too-incisive, too-truthful words—accomplish what his big frame doesn’t. “But that’s not it, is it? Why do I still get the feeling there’s more, as you put it? And right now, I’m the one paying for thatmore?”
“We’re not talking about me,” I rasp.
“Aren’t we?” he presses.
He’s too close. Too ... much. I can’t breathe.
“Move back.” I shove against his chest. “Move.”
But before I say the secondmove, he’s backing away, granting me space. I claw the air like a drowning woman whose head just broke water. I whirl around, flattening my palms on the counter. Blindly staring straight ahead at the marbled backsplash, I force my breathing to slow. To even.
I’m not that lonely, broken, lied-to girl anymore. The one he so accurately described. The little girl who’d hungered for friends only to be rejected and bullied for daring to try to be ... normal. The child and woman who treaded the precarious line of being too perfect and terrified of fucking up and marring that perfection, of losing her parents’ esteem and affection.
And then there was the young woman who’d been so desperate for love, for acceptance, to belong that she’d given herself to the first guy who’d shown interest in her. And been betrayed in the cruelest way for that trust.
They’re not me, and I’m not them.
Not anymore.
