Page 104 of Cruel When He Smiles

“If you want to own him, you have to earn the part of him no one else has touched. The part that flinches when his phone rings. The part that still belongs to someone else,” Killian continues. “You can fuck him raw, Liam. You can make him beg, make him sob, make him scream—but none of it matters if that part of him is still anchored to a voice that isn’t yours.”

The words sit like stones in my chest. I want to reject it. I want to tell him he’s wrong. That control is about power, that submission is about dominance, and that this is obsession, ownership, and nothing else.

But I didn’t see ownership in his eyes today; I saw fear.

Killian is quiet again, watching the gears turn behind my eyes, and I don’t like how he’s already figured out where I’m going before I get there. “You’re already too close,” he says, “so you might as well go all the way.”

“I’m not in love with him,” I snap.

Killian’s grin is slow, cruel, and amused. “Didn’t say you were.”

“You’re thinking it,” I growl.

“I don’t think in fairytales, Liam. That’s your problem.”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“You do,” he chuckles. “He’s got pretty green eyes and trauma you can’t fuck out of him.”

I scowl and stand abruptly, dragging a hand over my jaw, trying to settle the riot in my chest. I don’t love Nate. I’m notcapable of it. I was raised to control, not to connect. I was built for psychological warfare, not emotional rescue.

Killian smirks as if he can hear each of my thoughts. “You keep trying to convince yourself this is just obsession, but here’s the thing, little brother—obsession burns fast. It doesn’t stick around after the high.”

I exhale slowly, head tipping back as I stare at the ceiling. I feel raw. Like Killian just carved out the softest part of my chest and held it up to the light.

Nate doesn’t need comfort; he needs permanence. He needs to know someone isn’t going to flinch when he tells them the worst parts of himself. And if I want all of him—the scars, the silences, the locked doors, and the shattered glass—I have to become the one thing stronger than his fear.

Not the one who fixes him, or the one who softens the edges, but the one who takes his fire and makes it burn brighter. I glance at my brother, and a plan starts to form.

I’m not going to take Nate Carter. I’m going to make him choose me every single time, even when it hurts. Even when he’s afraid, even when someone else’s voice is screaming louder than mine in his memory.

Because, eventually, I’ll be the only voice he hears.

Nate

It’sbeenamonthsince I let him claim me as his.

A full month since I stopped pretending I had a choice and realized it was just easier this way. A month of soft commands and sharp edges. Of waking up with his voice in my ear, of closing my eyes to the weight of his hand around my throat, not in fear but in relief. A month of watching myself change in the mirror and not recognizing who I used to be.

Because this version of me—the one who listens, who leans in, who obeys—is quieter in my head and easier to live with.

Fighting Liam is like trying to drown a wildfire. You only end up burning more slowly.

So, I stopped fighting, and I chose him.

It wasn’t some big, cinematic collapse of will. No dramatic fall to my knees. It was quiet. Gradual. The kind of surrender that comes when you realize no one else is coming. When you understand that, for better or worse, he stays.

Maybe it should’ve terrified me. Maybe I should’ve run harder. But the truth is, it’s easier this way.

Easier when I choose him.

Easier when I stop clawing at the walls of my own head and just let him in. When I let his voice ground me instead of questioning the weight of it. When I lean into the soft control that wraps around my ribs and holds me up when I don’t even realize I’m falling apart again. It’s easier to just be his Pup.

I stopped answering the calls from my mother two weeks ago.

First, I ignored one. Then two. Then I blocked the number altogether. She sent emails next. Long, cold things full of polished concern and veiled criticism. I deleted them without reading past the first line. I don’t owe her a thing—not anymore. Not now that I’ve finally started breathing again.

Because when I’m with Liam, the noise is gone.