Page 53 of Cruel When He Smiles

He grins as if he’s proud of me, and I know he is. Killian and I don’t need to say we love each other. We don’t need words like that. We say it in war, in shared destruction, in how we sharpen each other’s edges enough to make the cuts cleaner.

“Now you’re speaking my language,” he says. “You always go straight for the mind, don’t you? Most people fuck to scratch an itch. You fuck to filet them open just to see what leaks out.”

“Because the truth is in how they break. I want him dependent,” I say, grinding out the cigarette. “Not just turned on or humiliated. I want him to reach for his phone and hope it’s me. I want him to come without knowing if he’s allowed to. I want him asking himself if I meant it when I said he was a good boy.”

He watches me with something darker threading through the amusement. “So, you’re going to keep being soft? Keep whispering nice things until he melts into your hands?”

I tilt my head. “You think I should rip him open right now? Crush him too soon and all I’ll have left is a pile of bones.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is,” I reply evenly. “A corpse can’t beg.”

Killian chuckles again, but there’s a flicker of pride in it now, the kind only a fellow monster can recognize. He leans back on his palms, studying me. “You like him.”

“I want him,” I correct, “like you want a maze you can’t solve. I want to take him apart and rebuild him wrong just to see if he can still function.”

He grins again. “You manipulative bastard.”

I bow my head. “Thank you.”

He stands and grabs a cigarette off the nightstand, lighting it with the silver Zippo lighter. I watch the flame burn down, theslow inhale, how he tilts his head up toward the ceiling. “You always were the romantic of the two of us.”

“Says the guy who breaks bones instead of hearts.”

“Bones heal. Feelings don’t.” He shrugs. “And you know we don’t love, little brother.”

“I don’t,” I say flatly. “This isn’t love.”

“Obsession, then,” he corrects, eyes glinting. “Which is worse. But what happens when he begs you to stay? When he’s soft and everything you want wrapped in your sheets? What then?”

“I’ll keep him.”

Killian raises an eyebrow at that. “Even when he starts to matter?” I pause long enough for him to see it. He leans back against the wall with a dark, pleased grin. “You’re already there, aren’t you?”

“No,” I say. “But I could be.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, cigarette dangling from his fingertips. “You sure you’re not slipping?”

“If I were slipping, I’d tell him the truth,” I say coolly. “That I’ve never felt like this about anyone, and he’s the first person to make me want in a way I can’t rationalize. That it scared me so much I cut myself in the shower and stared at the blood just to remember who I am.”

Killian’s smile disappears. “You did what?”

Oh, fuck.The words slipped out before I could reel them back, but their damage is done. Killian’s cigarette hangs forgotten between his fingers, the ash trailing too long, untouched.

“It’s handled,” I blurt.

“You cut yourself again?” he demands, his voice dark.

“I said it’s handled.”

His fingers flex once before he crushes the cigarette against the edge of the nightstand, the ember flaring, smothered out with an angry hiss. Then he crosses the room in three strides, grabs my wrist, and yanks me to my feet. “Show me.”

“No.”

“Liam.”

“Not now,” I grit out. “I’m in control again. I made it through without losing to whatever the fuck is breaking me from the inside out.”