Page 28 of Cruel When He Smiles

And that can’t happen. Not if I want to keep what’s left of myself intact.

Liam

Thewaterscaldsasit beats down on my skin, but I don’t move. I let it sear me, standing there with my forehead pressed against the slick tile and my palms flat to the wall because, right now, they’re the only things keeping me upright.

The hiss of the water is loud in the stall, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of my father’s voice in my head.

You’re weak, Liam.

My jaw clenches until it hurts. The muscles in my face strain so hard they feel like they’ll crack right off the bone. My chest is tight, stomach twisted in knots that don’t let up. And then there’s the sting low on my side, a reminder of what I did to myself the second I got home. The pain had cut through the noise for a second, but it wasn’t enough.

The water runs pink where it swirls at my feet.

I look down and track the thin trails of diluted blood as they slip into the drain, the wound on my abdomen pulsing with every breath. It’s deeper than I meant to make it. Deeper thanit should be. I should’ve stopped before the blade kissed muscle, but I couldn’t. My hand had moved too fast. I needed it gone—the ache, the heat, the taste of Nate still on my tongue, the look in his eyes when I pushed him against my car.

His entire body language was screamingruin me. Ididwant to ruin him, but I wanted to keep him, too. That’s the part that makes me sick. That’s the part that made the incision necessary.

I drag my hand up just under the cut and press gently, testing the burn. I hiss under my breath, but I welcome the sting. At least this is pain I can control. This doesn’t sneak in through my chest and sit behind my lungs like rot. This doesn’t steal into my dreams and haunt me with the sound of Nate’s voice when he whisperedthen burn me.

Then I kissed him so hard I tasted the moan on his tongue. I touched him like I owned him. I let my hands curl around his throat and his hips, and I didn’t stop myself. I gave in again. It didn’t feel wrong in that moment; it felt as necessary as breathing.

I let out a slow breath through my teeth and tilt my head back, closing my eyes and listening to the pipes groan somewhere deep in the walls. The steam curls around my face, thick and suffocating. But it’s not the steam choking me—it’s the memory.

His smile. His breathless, bratty laugh. The way he looked at me, like I was something worth falling apart for.

Pathetic.

The word cuts deeper than the blade did.

That voice again.His. The man whose fists painted my skin in bruises for years, whose words taught me to cage myself behind a mirror I polished daily until I could fake normal. The man who raised me—the Honorable Judge Elias Callahan—who said emotions were for the weak, that love was a leash, and if I ever let anyone close enough to see me bleed, I deserved to die from the wound.

I glance down at the gash again. I’ll need to bandage it. Maybe glue it shut. Stitches would be smarter, but that means questions. It’s not the first time I’ve done this; not the worst, either. But it’s the first time it’s felt like failure instead of routine.

Callahan men are not weak.

I exhale slowly through my nose, water streaming down my face symbolizing the tears I refuse to cry.Weak.That word lives in my skin, carved there by every backhand, every locked room, every hour I spent under the microscope of a mother who saw me as nothing more than an experiment and a father who only measured strength in silence and bruises.

I learned to be still.

I learned not to scream.

I learned to turn my pain into structure.

But now there’s a crack in the foundation, and his name is Nate Carter.

I grit my teeth and shut off the water. The rush of silence that follows is almost worse. I stand there for a second, dripping and shivering under the weight of my own skin, and then I step out. The mirror is fogged, but I don’t wipe it. I don’t want to see myself. I don’t want to look into my own eyes and see how fucking hollow they’ve become.

I grab a towel and press it to the cut. It blooms red instantly, but I keep pressing, watching the fibers soak through as I move to the sink. I pull open the drawer under it and fish out the emergency kit I keep hidden under razors and bottles of cologne I never wear. I set it down and flip it open, my hands steady even though my heart’s rattling like it wants out of my ribs.

The burn starts when I disinfect it. The alcohol bites, and I hiss low, but I don’t stop. I clean it like I’m erasing the sin. As if scrubbing hard enough will erase the memory of how close I came to letting someone see the boy underneath the monster.

Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? For a second, Nate saw him. The scared, broken thing I buried under layers of control, charm, and cold logic. He saw it and didn’t flinch. He leaned in, and he kissed it back to life; he made it breathe.

… And I panicked.

I didn’t cut to punish myself. I didn’t do it to control a spiral. I did it because I didn’t know what else to do. Because when I shoved Nate against that car, when I put my hand around his throat and watched his mouth part, I saw something I wasn’t ready for.

Want. Need. Willingness.Submission.