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I hate this. I hate this jealous, insecure person I’m turning into.

“Whether or not that’s true is irrelevant, Shae, becauseIdon’t want her.”

I’m almost offended for Storm for how aggressively disbelieving my expression is.

“Shae,” he grinds out. “What can I do to convince you that you’re the one I want? That you’re the one I want to be with?”

Everything within me—my anger, my confusion—halts at the stressed sound in his voice.

“What? What are you even saying right now, Storm? You’ve been distant, even after the push and pull of saying you want to be with me for weeks, and now I’m just supposed to accept that I’m the one you want? When you have other girls calling you, and I can’t even get a date for pizza lately?”

“Shae—”

“No,” I interrupt, on the edge of crying. I let the emotion come. “This is confusing, Storm. I don’t know what to trust or what to believe when it comes to you. Can you blame me for being protective of my heart?”

“Shae!” I freeze when he drops my legs from around his waist and grabs my face, pinning my head back to the wall and forcing me to look him in the eye. If any other man were to make this move, I’d scream for the cops and try to knee him in the balls.

But with Storm’s broad palm cupping my chin, his firm but not painful fingers pressed to my cheek…I can’t explain why I go limp in his hold.

It’s almost like being caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole, unknowing of what’s on the other side.

“Listen to me carefully. When I saw that fucker try to take you away that night at Velour, try to hurt you…I’ve never felt rage like I felt in that moment. You have no idea how crazy I am over you. What I’d do for you.”

My body goes cold at his words. Flashes of that night rush to the surface, none of them making sense. Nothing but…

“What happened to the guy who attacked us, Storm? What did you do?” My voice is reed-thin, like I’m about to pass out from lack of oxygen.

He bores into my eyes, so many things are communicated in his expression.

“What happened,” he says slowly, “is he decided to try to hurt you. And that decision cost him greatly.”

Storm moves his hand from my jaw to my throat, and then down to my chest. Over my heart.

“But he won’t make that choice again,” he finishes.

Cold. Detached. Lethal.

That’s the only way to describe how he explains that night to me. I try to swallow, but my tongue seems dehydrated, sticking to the roof of my mouth.

Fear. Ishouldbe terrified right now because as I’m putting two and two together….

“Was it…was it a fatal decision, Storm?” The words are barely a breath.

Storm doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t flinch. Instead, he says, “That’s not the question you want to ask, Sweetness.”

And that says everything I could possibly need to know.

Now to decide what to do with that information because…because the moral compass that’d been drilled into me every Sunday and reinforced in my home by my father is absent.

The more depraved his actions, the more relaxed I become. Pliant.

Surrendering.

“With you, I feel light, but there’s darkness within me. With anyone else, I’m quick to anger, I struggle to access empathy,” he continues, his eyes never leaving mine. “But with you, those things come easily. You are sunshine and heart. You keep me grounded. And it makes me want to give you the world and be the man you need me to be.”

“You shouldn’t change yourself for anyone, Storm. Not for anyone except yourself.”

He grins, but the look in his eyes makes the movement sad. Gentle fingers tuck a stray curl behind my ear.