Page 51 of Cruel When He Smiles

His face is inches from mine, hazel eyes wild, lips curled between fury and relief. My back is pinned to the door, my heart jackhammering.

“I…” My voice is shredded. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can, Pup,” he says in that soft voice. “Breathe for me. In and out.”

He presses me harder into the car, and the pain shocks me back into place. It hurts, which means I’m here. I’m not a kid. I’m not in that house. I’m not—

“There you go,” Liam mutters, watching me like he’s watching a chemical reaction. “That’s it. Come back to me.”

My knees buckle slightly, but he holds me there. “I said breathe.”

And I do. It stutters and it’s ugly, but it’s air. His hand drops to my chest, palm flat, pushing with enough pressure to keep me from curling in on myself again. “You were zoning out,” he says.

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.” His grip tightens, his hand curling in the collar of my jacket, dragging me forward just to shove me back again. “You were glassy-eyed, pale, and holding that phone like it was going to burn you. Who was it?”

I don’t answer, and Liam’s eyes narrow. “Who was on the phone, Nate?”

“No one,” I shake my head, too fast, too shallow. “It’s fine.”

He slams me harder into the car. “Don’t lie to me,” he says quietly. “You were shaking. You were completelygone. When I looked into your eyes, you weren’t even here.”

“I said it’s fine. I can handle it,” I snap, the words feeling like broken glass on my tongue.

He leans in, his hand pressing flat to my throat like a leash. As if he’s reminding me that if anyone’s going to push me over the edge, it’ll be him. I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to listen to any more of his truths.

“Liam—” I inhale, but it catches. “Please stop. I don’t want to talk about this. Just… leave it.”

He lets out a sad sigh at that and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Okay, but only because you asked,” he says, and the smile he offers me makes my heart skip a beat because I just realized something fucked up.

He’s the only person who makes me feel safe when I spiral. He doesn’t do it gently, either—he chokes the fucking sense right back into me.

“Why…Howdo you know how to do that?” I whisper after a beat. “That’s the second or third time you’ve… you’ve helped me. How do you know what to do?”

His lips lift at the corners. “I know how to break people, Nate,” he says with a soft smile, tilting his head to the side. “And if I can break them, I can also put them back together.”

He says it so simply like it’s not the most fucked up thing ever, then he pulls back and drops my phone into my palm. “Drive safe,” he murmurs, and walks away, and I stand there, staring after him, phone clutched in my hand, heart fucking wrecked in my chest.

I don’t know what’s worse—that he saw how broken I really am…

Or that he didn’t flinch.

Liam

Thesmirkstillclingsto my face by the time I push open the front door of the Sin Bin and step into the low-lit chaos I call home.

The air smells like stale weed, cheap body spray, and victory—the kind that sticks to your skin after a win, a fuck, or a power move. Mine feels like all three.

Nate Carter thinks I care about him—little does he know, I want him broken. Not in a loud, dramatic, slam-you-against-a-wall kind of way. That’s Killian’s style. No, I want to make Nate crave me the way a starving animal would crave poison disguised as food. I want to make him kneel, not because he fears me, but because he misses me. Because being without me feels worse than pain.

I want to ruin him with softness and decimate him with kindness. Then I’ll devour him whole.

Killian’s door is half open, and I can already hear the wet, gagging sound of someone on their knees. No effort to hide it, ofcourse. He doesn’t care who hears. The scent of sweat and sex is thick in the air before I even step inside, but I don’t flinch. I don’t turn away.

There’s a shirtless blond guy bent low between Killian’s legs, working his mouth like it’s his only purpose. Killian’s got one hand in his hair, pushing, not guiding, while the other hand is behind his head.

His eyes cut to mine the moment I take the chair across from him—the big, black leather one by his desk; the one I know that he only lets me and Roman sit in. Our eyes meet, but he doesn’t stop fucking his toy’s mouth and doesn’t even blink.