Page 113 of Watch Me Burn
It stops now.
I move toward the door, needing distance, needing him to leave. “I can’t trust you, Damien. How could I ever trust you again? You lied to me for months. Made me question my own feelings, my own sanity. You made me feel crazy.”
“I won’t let you end this.” He blocks my path, and all of a sudden, he’s the predator again, all coiled muscle and dangerous intent. I nearly collide with his chest, stopping short at the last second.
“You don’t get a choice.” I try to push past him, but he’s immovable. “Leave. Now.”
“No.”
The possessiveness in his tone, the casual dismissal of my autonomy, snaps something inside me. The hurt and betrayal and months of confusion crystallize into pure, white-hot rage.
“Get out!” I shove against his chest with both hands, putting every ounce of my strength behind it. He barely rocks back on his heels. “Get out of my house!”
“Luna, calm down—”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I swing at him, tears streaming down my face despite my determination not to cry. “You lied to me! You manipulated me! You made me fall in love with a wolf in billionaire’s clothing!”
He catches my wrists, pinning them between us, his grip firm but not painful. Still, I struggle against him, all my hurt and rage pouring out in a frenzy of movement. I’m not trying to hurt him. We both know I couldn’t even if I wanted to, but I need to move, need to fight, need to do something with all this pain threatening to tear me apart from the inside.
“Are you going to zip-tie me now? Fuck me into submission?”
“Do I need to?”
“Let me go.” I sob, still struggling against his hold. “Just let me go.”
“Never.”
His mouth crashes onto mine, urgent and possessive. The lies are still there. The betrayal. The trust ground to dust between us. My mind knows this. But my body, my traitorous body, responds, lips parting, hands fisting in his collar, meeting his desperation with my own.
Because this is real. This heat, this need, this devastating connection that transcends both his identities.
This is the one thing that was never a lie.
Chapter twenty-eight
Damien
The moment our lips meet, a dam bursts inside my chest. The rigid architecture of control I’ve spent months constructing—every careful boundary, every practiced separation between the man who courts her and the beast who claims her—explodes into fragments. The pressure that has lived behind my ribs, the constant ache of holding back, releases in a rush that leaves me gasping against her mouth, crumbling under the force of our kiss.
She tastes like tears and rage and love, and I want to drown in her. This is what I’ve stolen from us. The chance to love without shadows, to touch without deception, to exist in the same moment as one person instead of fragments scattered across two lives.
This connection, honest, unguarded, and real, is what I’ve been too afraid to give us. What I’ve been too convinced I didn’t deserve to even try for.
“I hate you.”
Her growl vibrates against my mouth, but her hands tangle in my shirt, dragging me closer. The contradiction in her words and actions mirrors everything I feel, the self-loathing and desperate love warring inside me.
“I know.” I back her toward the couch, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm behind my ribs as our kisses deepen. My hands find her waist, fingers digging in like she might disappear if I don’t hold tight enough. “Me too.”
I hate what I’ve done to us. I hate that I was too much of a coward to trust her with all of me from the beginning.
Her fingers shake as she grips my shirt, and I catch her hands, stilling them, pulling back to look down at her pale face. The tremor in her touch and the tears staining her face gut me more than any blade could.
“Luna.” I search her face. The storm of emotions there—pain, anger, love—all of it so raw it squeezes the air from my lungs. My thumbs brush across her knuckles, trying to steady us both. “I’m sorry. Christ, I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her tear-filled eyes lift to mine.
“Sorry doesn’t fix this.”
