Page 56 of Bitter When He Begs

I should lie, but the truth slips out instead. “I was worried about you.”

He stills, and for half a second, he just stares at me. We both didn’t expect that to come out of my mouth, and while I stand there, embarrassed, his lips curls into a lazy smirk. “You were worried about me?”

I grit my teeth; my hands clench into fists at my sides and my pulse pounds in my ears because I fucking knew this would happen. I knew he’d turn this into something to humiliate me with again.

“Yeah, okay? I was,” I lift my chin, daring him to twist the knife a little deeper like he always does. “But if you’re gonna mock me for it, you can go fuck yourself.”

Luca’s smirk doesn’t slip; if anything, it deepens. He leans in and tilts his head to the side. “Why the fuck are you worried about a guy who spent the last few months trying to make your life hell?”

Maybe it’s because I’m already in too deep with this asshole. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of pretending I don’t feel whatever the fuck this is. Or maybe, it’s because, at the end of the day, I’ve never been able to lie to Luca… not really.

“Because that guy said I belonged to him.”

This ends up being the thing that makes his smirk fade, and he closes his eyes as he tips his head back. He lets out a pained sigh, like that was the last thing he needed to hear.

“Sage,” his voice catches while saying my name, and he exhales with his eyes still closed. “I can’t be around you right now.”

I suck in a breath because, a few weeks ago, Luca would never have said something like this to me. Not when I’ve just basically told him he was right in saying I belong to him.

“I’m dealing with some personal shit, and being around you…” he shakes his head and finally looks at me again, “just makes it worse.”

I swallow past the rising lump in my throat. “Then let me go.”

His fingers curl against the doorframe, and I watch the way he clenches his jaw. “That’s the problem. I still can’t.”

The air between us feels thick with tension, and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to say to that. There’s nothing that fits, nothing that could untangle the chaos in my thoughts. So I just stand there, chest tight and heart pounding like it wants out of my chest and into his.

Luca drags his gaze over my face like he’s memorizing it. “I gave up one bad habit,” he breathes, “cut it out because I knew it was slowly killing me.”

He laughs, but it’s a bitter sound. “But you? You’re the same brand of fucked-up, Sage. The same thing I can’t quit.”

My heart stutters. “W-what?”

Luca’s eyes flick away from me before meeting my gaze again, and he leans in close, his mouth a breath from mine. “The difference between you and the pills,” he breathes against my lips, “is that you make me care. And I don’t know how to fucking deal with that.”

And fuck.

Fuck… I don’t know what to do with that, either. So I turn my head, bite my lip, and look away.

He brushes his fingers along my jaw before tilting my chin and forcing me to look at him. His thumb drags over my bottom lip, pulling it from between my teeth and pressing down hard enough to make me gasp.

I hate how easy it is for him to fuck with me like this; how easily he can get my pulse spiking and my brain short-circuiting with nothing but a touch. “I don’t know when you got under myskin like this. It was easier not to give a fuck about things before I met you.”

My breath comes quicker and my fingers twitch at my sides because I shouldn’t want to touch him just to erase the lost fucking look on his face right now. But instead of doing that, I force out a quiet, “Do you want me to leave?”

Luca drops his hand, and I watch as his jaw locks like he hates the question. A few seconds pass before he closes his eyes, slowly exhales, and shakes his head.

No.

He opens his eyes and his gaze dips to my mouth, his own lips parting. I watch the way his teeth catch on the corner of his bottom lip like he’s trying to say something else, but he’s stopping himself.

That’s when I feel the faint tremble in his body, almost as if he’s holding himself back from touching me again. Like touching me would break him, and not touching me already has.

And then he asks me, his voice barely above a whisper, “Can I kiss you?”

Shock slams through me so fast that it steals the air from my lungs. Not because of the words themselves, and not because of the way he’s looking at me or the fact that he looks like he’s already made up his mind.

… But because heasked.