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Ezra manages to step closer, our bodies brushing together, his eyes trapping mine as he ducks his head to make sure he has every last bit of my attention.
“You want to know what I think?”
Not really. But I have a feeling he’s going to tell me anyway.
“I think you’re looking for any possible way to strike back at me for what I did. I think you got busted in whatever it is you’re trying to do, and rather than explaining yourself, you’re diverting the topic tobullshit,” he says, emphasizing that word with a snap to his voice that makes me flinch. “Only because you’ve been cornered. I may be a lot of things, killer. An ass? Yep, got that covered. A bully? Pretty much. A guy who sees through games like the one you’re playing and calls people out on them? You better fucking believe it. But what I amnotis weak.”
I hit a nerve, it seems, one that is scraped raw and hurts any time someone touches it.
My eyes trap Ezra’s in return because I won’t let him intimidate me. Not anymore.
“Just the fact you can’t accept it and admit it makes you weak. We’ve all been through hell. Every last one of us. Just being born into our families is hell. But some of us haven’t bowed to the pressure of the crap on our shoulders. I have no choices in life. None! Yet I still walk with my head high and don’t need to hurt other people because I can’t handle the shit hand life has dealt me. I still care. I still love. I still treat people with the respect they deserve. And I respect myself enough to know when to walk away from a person who can’t find it within himself to treat me like I deserve.”
“Like me?” he asks, his head tilting slightly.
Another tear rolls down my cheek. But not for me.
For him.
For what’s been done to him.
For what he refuses to see.
“Yes, like you.”
He grins, but it isn’t the mockery in that expression that hurts. It’s the heat in his eyes, the fire that calls to mine.
It’s the same look he gets when he’s about to pin me against a wall and take what he wants.
The same look he gets when he fights.
The same look that has the ability to melt me in place and whisper to me until I submit.
Fuck, this man does things to me that shouldn’t be allowed. That I shouldn’t allow. But tell that to the heat between my thighs. To the way my skin becomes tight and everything feminine inside me comes to life. I luxuriate in his physical strength, in his prowess, in the feral masculinity in him that takes and takes and takes.
But while he makes my body sing, he crushes my heart and gnaws on my soul. He consumes me. Devours me. He leaves me bruised and broken, just like him.
I refuse to continue giving my heart to a person who doesn’t know how to care for his own.
The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. And it’s becoming clear that my insanity has always been my love for Ezra.
“I find it interesting you brought Damon into this.” Ezra rubs his thumb across his bottom lip, his body weaving, the energy in him sparking and snapping against my skin. “Because I think you like to keep him around just in case shit doesn’t work with me. I think you like to keep your options open. And that’s why you refused to tell him the truth. That’s why you were so mad this morning. But Damon isn’t dumb, killer. He didn’t wait around for you to talk to him after seeing that because we’re fucking used to women who are perfectly fine with whichever one of us they get. Damon and I both now think that you’re just another one of those women, one who doesn’t give a fuck whose bed she’s in, just as long as it’s with one of us.”
He not only jammed the knife in, he gave it a good damn twist. This son of a bitch managed to turn what he did this morning around on me.
And I refuse to accept it.
“You know what?” I roar. “Both of you can fuck off if that’s what you think I’m doing! I’m sick of this!”
Slapping at the tears that leak from my eyes, I turn my back on him and run down the stairs. He’ll never see the truth of what he’s doing. He’ll never believe that someone can love him forhim.
I’m done arguing with him about it. Done tiptoeing around, trying to avoid all the land mines they both have scattered about.
I’m done.
Reaching the grass, I hear Ivy’s voice above me, and I glance over my shoulder to see her blocking Ezra from chasing after me.
For a quick second, I worry that he’ll hurt her in order to follow where I’m going. Even now, his eyes are locked on me while Ivy moves to block his path.