Page 37 of Cruel When He Smiles

Why can’t she love me? Why can’t I ever be good enough?

My lungs can’t keep up, and my chest seizes again. It feels like I’m falling to my knees, but the ground never comes. I’m floating… sinking. Drowning in the weight of that look in her eyes, that look that says I’m not enough. That I never was.

The world flickers again. A glitch. Then everything slows.

A hand closes around my throat.

Not hard or painful. Just…there.Anchoring me to the dark. Pressing gently enough to pull me out of it without snapping the cord. My pulse stutters beneath the grip, but this isn’t her touch.

It’s warm.

Familiar.

I can’t see anything except the blur of shadow and color, but I hear it. The kind of whisper that knows it doesn’t need to be louder to be heard.

“Pup.”

My body jerks, and nerve endings flicker to life, one by one. My limbs still feel frozen, breath caught somewhere between throat and lungs, but that word cuts through the static like a scalpel.

“Breathe,” the voice says again, softer now. A little closer. “You’re safe. You’re here, Nate. Just breathe.”

I want to. I swear I do. I want to break through the surface of this nightmare, crack it open, and climb out gasping. But something inside me still thinks I deserve it, still thinks I need to stay until I’ve earned my way back.

The pressure on my throat increases just enough to remind me that I’m not alone in the dark.

“Come on, Pup,” the voice says, coaxing. “I’ve got you.”

The words wrap around my ribs and squeeze. My eyes start to burn, my fingers twitch, and my mouth opens in a silent breath, and then I finally gasp.

Air rushes back in like floodwater. My chest rises too fast, and my entire body jolts as my back arches off the mattress. The room slams back into focus—hotel, dim lighting, that shitty AC unit.

I blink, hard… and suddenly Liam Callahan is crouched over me, eyes wide, hand still pressed gently to my throat. I can’t breathe; the air in my lungs feels wrong now, too thick, too jagged. My throat convulses once, and I gag on it.

“Nate…hey. Look at me.”

It takes everything, but I look up. Liam’s hair is mussed from sleep, a crease in his cheek from the pillow, but his eyes aren’tcold tonight. They’re soft and focused on me. Edges melting the longer I look at them.

“Breathe,” he says again, his voice so low I barely catch it. “Slowly. There you go, you’re okay.”

I inhale through my nose, shaky and uneven. He nods once, guiding me through every second. “Good,” he murmurs. “Keep going.”

The air floods back into my lungs, cold and dry. My body aches, muscles knotted from whatever position I’d been locked in. Sweat slicks my back, my chest, and the inside of my elbows. I don’t think I’ve stopped shaking.

My voice is rough when it finally slips out. “Let go of me.”

Liam nods, and his hand slowly slides away from my throat, fingers coasting lightly across my skin before they disappear altogether. I cough again, dragging my arm over my eyes and curling in on myself out of instinct.

He doesn’t ask if I’m okay, and I’m grateful for that, because I’m not. Not even close. But he moves back a little, giving me space. He must’ve woken up to the sound of me struggling, and I wonder how loud I was, if I screamed, said her name, or if I begged.

I know what he wants to ask. I know he heard me.

I just look at him. At Liam Callahan—beautiful, cruel, impossibly calm—watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on him before. It’s raw and painfully human. He probably doesn’t even know he’s showing it.

“You were screaming,” he says finally.

I glance down, then immediately wish I hadn’t because the sheets are wet but not from sweat.

The shame rolls back in like a punch to the chest. I grit my teeth, swallow hard, and curl my hands into fists, trying to hide the tremble in my arms. Liam doesn’t move or comment. He doesn’t glance toward the wet sheets or the way my body’s stillhalf-frozen in humiliation. He just stays exactly where he is, watching me with that same unreadable intensity.