Page 117 of Every Time My Heart Breaks

Ignoring her snide tone, I shook my head, still riding all the shock. “I don’t know,” I uttered, turning to stare sightlessly into nothing and trying to figure out that answer for myself. All I knew with any certainty was that it was true. What I’d just spat out in the heat of the moment had come from the very core of my being. I’d freakingvibratedwith its honesty.

“Whoa.”

The room went unfocused, and for a moment, I thought I might pass out. So I backed up a few steps until I ran into the wall, where I reached blindly behind me to support myself. For the longest time, that Sheetrock was the only thing keeping me upright. I swayed dazedly, blinking at the opposite wall in front of me.

After panting out a couple of calming breaths, I shook my head and glanced toward Chloe, amazed. “I thought it’d be different than this,” I admitted, still utterly astonished. “I thought I’d know the exact moment when it happened, but I have no clue when this happened. I just know it did, and it’sbeenthis way, like…” I frowned and shook my head, realizing, “For a while.”

Damn, her dad had been right when he’d suggested that I was already in love with her, hadn’t he?

“Luke.” Sighing out a harassed but exhausted breath, Chloe rubbed at the center of her forehead as if I were giving her a stress headache. “You’re not in love with me.”

I laughed harshly because, yeah, this would be my luck. I finally fall and tell the woman I love her, and she’s all like,Nope. Not happening.

It couldn’t just be easy, could it?

“You’re delusional and trying too hard and telling yourself things that aren’t true,” she muttered irritably as she turned away, but I leaned forward and snagged her arm, swinging her back around to face me, where she blinked wide, startled eyes.

“How about younottell me how I do and don’t feel,” I suggested mildly but also with a bit of a bite. “Since, you know,I’mthe one living in this body and experiencing these emotions; not you. I think I can determine what it does and doesn’t feel better than you can.”

“Except you’re not in love with me,” she countered, trying to pull her elbow free, but I tightened my grip and stepped closer, narrowing my eyes.

“Oh yeah?” I challenged softly. “Then why did I just blurt it out in anger when a personalwaysspouts a bunch of honest shit they wouldn’t spill otherwise?”

“B-because—” she sputtered, not able to think up a good retort. When I raised my eyebrows, silently claiming,See, she glared and stepped closer. “Because you were trying to shock me into silence just so you can win this argument.”

“Except I’ve already won it,” I murmured, smiling wickedly as I stepped closer. “Thisisn’tanother Lucy situation no matter how you slice it.”

Her eyes heated as she sucked in a breath, and instead of backing away as if intimidated, I swear she melted closer to me. Lifting a finger, I turned my hand over and gently ran the back of my knuckles along her cheek.

The anger in her eyes wavered as her lashes fluttered in confusion.

“I love you,” I whispered. “And I can tell I do by the way Istillwant to pull a complete stranger’s spine out through his chest cavity after merely seeing hisnameshow up on your phone. I know it because I was devastated when you no longer let me stay over anymore. I feel it when I’m lying in bed each night, unable to sleep because you’re not next to me. It’s obvious from the way you’ve become the first person I want to see when I wake up and the last I want near me before I shut my eyes. I can sense it here…”

I pressed my fisted hand against my abdomen adamantly. “Because I think of you as mine. You’re my friend, my obsession, my confidante. I’ve told you shit that I’ve never toldanyone…because I trust you with those parts of me more than I trust anyone else alive. No one gets my heart rate up more thanyoudo from simply walking into a room. And right now, I’d really rathernotlike you at all because you’re kind of pissing me off, but I still do anyway. Because I can’t seem to fucking help it.”

Tears gathered in her eyes as I spoke, but all she did when I finished talking was draw in a deep, shuddered breath and shake her head. “I don’t know what you’re feeling,” she told me, “but it’s not love.”

“Bullshit,” I hissed, scowling.

“You’re not in love with me,” she insisted, obstinately refusing to believe it.

“Christ, will you just stop arguing with me for half a second and listen to what I’m saying? I swear; you are the most maddening, stubborn woman ever!” I growled. “Sometimes, I just want to wring your damn neck!”

Eyes flashing with heat, she lifted her chin boldly, exposing said throat to me. “Oh really? Well, do your worst,” she dared. “I survived Dax Freston. I can survive you, too.”

And that’s what pushed me over the edge. I lifted my hands at the challenge and actually curled all ten fingers around her neck, not actually touching any flesh, just caging her inside my grasp.

Her eyes flared in surprise while my fingers shook with emotion: with fury and anger, and pain and sorrow.

“Don’t ever…” I rasped, my voice barely audible. “Compare me to that monster again.Hewanted to possess and own you. I value you more than I do my own life.”

Her lips parted, and she whispered my name.

A pained shudder wracked my frame. Wincing through it, I shifted my thumb, just barely skimming it over Chloe’s windpipe. “I just want to worship you with everything I have.”

She exhaled and her head came back as lust sparked in her gaze.

A hoarse groan escaped my throat, and I crushed my mouth to hers.

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