Page 60 of A Wreck, You Make Me

“He needs a lesson,” he insists, his eyes still clouded over.

I let go of his sleeve and cup his jaw, ignoring everything, the choking sounds coming from the guy, the gasps of his friends at the table as I say, “No, he doesn’t. Let him go. Please. For me. Do it for me.”

For a few seconds, I think I’ve asked too much of him. He won’t do it, and he definitely won’t do it for the reason I’ve asked him to. We may share a connection and I may be his distraction that he desperately needs, but I don’t rank all that high in his life. Just as I feel the sting of rejection settling in, he lets the guy go. I hear the sounds of crashing and thudding in the background, mixed in with some grunts and groans. But I only have eyes for him as he straightens up and towers over me. And before the world can intrude on us more, I grab his hand and pull him away from the table. I drag him across the floor and through the crowd. I take him where I always do when he’s all agitated and angry. When he’s breathing the way he’s breathing now, fast and wild, and when his heat is threatening to burn even me.

Our usual room is empty, but I don’t give him a chance to open it for me like he usually does. I get to the knob, turn it and enter, all in one breath. But that’s all the leeway he’ll give me because as soon as the door closes behind us with a thud, he pulls on my hand, causing me to crash against his hard body. He spins us both around a second later and pins me to the door, putting his entire weight into it.

He presses his chest into mine and his abs into my belly. He even goes so far as to force me to spread my legs so he can fit himself between them. So he can push into my pelvis with his. Not that I mind, I welcome it. In fact, I go one step further. I go on my tiptoes and wind my leg around his densely muscled thigh. I arch my back and tilt my hips so he can fit even better.

Like we’re two pieces of the same puzzle. Or maybe we aren’t puzzle pieces at all, we’re mutual destruction. I’m his strawberry and he’s my sharp teeth. He’ll eat me up piece by piece, and I’ll kill the poison running through his veins.

Whatever we are though, I know we can’t get enough of each other. I know I’m gobbling him up with my eyes and he’s doing the same. I’m pulling at his hair and fisting his t-shirt, and he’s kneading my waist, tugging at my hair.

“You were scared,” he growls.

I swallow, tugging at his shirt. “A l-little, but?—”

He squeezes my flesh, making it hurt. “No, a lot.”

“I-I’m fine though. I’m?—”

“I could see it.” He leans closer, digging his belt buckle into my tummy. “I couldsenseit.”

Yeah, I bet he could. He’s my mind reader, isn’t he? I cup his face and say, “But Shepard?—”

“You shouldn’t have stopped me. You…” He takes in a deep growling breath. “I need to go back out there. I need?—”

“No, you don’t,” I tell him, squeezing my limbs around him tightly. “Stay here. With me.”

He looks at me angrily. Like he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that I’m making him do this, stopping him from whatever hell he’s planning on unleashing on those three idiots. But I don’t care. I don’t care if he hates it. I want him here. I need him here. So I keep holding on.

“Did he touch you somewhere else?” he asks then.

I shake my head, urgently. “No. No, he didn’t.”

“You sure about that?” But he doesn’t give me a chance to either confirm or deny, as he keeps going, “Because if he did, if he got his hands anywhere else, I’ll?—”

“No, Shepard, listen to me,” I say, my heart pounding urgently, my heels digging into the back of his thigh. “You arrived way before anything worse could’ve happened, okay? And you stopped it. You saved me.” Then, “You’re the only one who ever did.”

He is. From getting my pervy boss fired all those months ago to arranging my shoes in the closet in the middle of the night. From giving money to someone so they’d stop calling me a bitch to wanting to take care of my debt. He’s done so many big and small things for me. And he’s the only one who’s ever done that.

I’ve had to protect myself, and my sister too, for so long from the world filled with assholes that I didn’t even think anyone else could share that job with me. I didn’t even know what it would feel like if someone did. I didn’t know it felt like this: cherished and light. They say being strong is good, but what they don’t tell you is being strong is also fucking exhausting. Being a big sister is wonderful, but there are no breaks, except the ones he has given me. So yeah, this feels like walking on clouds. This feels like being carried through a field of flowers and into the sunset. Although right now, everything is so heavy and drenched in so many emotions, it’s like I’m going to burst.

With my need for him.

So before that happens, I continue, “So that was it. What you saw. I promise you. Just trust me,please.”

Something flickers through his features then, something I don’t understand but something unmistakable. And his fingers on my body freeze. He himself freezes for a few seconds, his massive chest feeling like a slab of stone. His thighs feeling like dense tree trunks. I’m about to ask him what’s wrong when he comes back to life, his hands start up their push and pull, kneading my flesh, fisting my hair. And his eyes, pretty and pitch-black right now even though I know there’s a hidden pool of chocolate in them, stare down at me with a certain intent.

Then, “Well, it’s not really his fault now, is it? Something about you drives men crazy.”

I swallow, winding my arms around his neck and giving him a squeeze. “I don’t care about other men.”

“No?”

“No, just you,” I confess and nothing I’ve ever said or will ever say can be truer. I may be lying to him about other things, but this one thing is and always will be true.

“Is that right?”