Page 68 of Cruel When He Smiles

Ipushhimawayand turn my back on him again.

“Don’t,” I say before he can say more, and my voice cracks, but I don’t care. “Don’t say another fucking word.”

Liam doesn’t listen. Of course he doesn’t. He’s already there, invading my space like he owns the air I’m trying to drag into my lungs. He doesn’t touch me yet, but I can feel the heat radiating off him, the steady weight of that gaze burning into the side of my face.

“You’re not going home like this,” he says.

“Watch me.”

“And I know you haven’t eaten all day.”

“So, now you care?” I turn toward him, hands shaking, my voice fraying from the need to cry. “You care if I eat? Is that your angle now?”

He exhales slowly. “You’re spiraling.”

“No shit,” I snap, loud enough that a bird takes off from a nearby fence. “You think I don’t know that? You think I can’t feel it in my fucking skin?”

Liam doesn’t react to the outburst. He never does. He’s frustratingly still, even as my whole body thrums with the urge to either punch a wall or collapse.

“Come back,” he says, softer now. “You don’t have to talk to him. Just eat something and breathe. Let me sit with you… let’s not make this uglier than it already is.”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You don’t get it. You never fucking get it. That wasn’t just Sage. That was—” I stop myself. My tongue presses hard against the back of my teeth. I almost saidthe last person I trusted.And that’s the goddamn problem, isn’t it?

He takes a small step forward. I flinch, not away from him but from myself. From how easy it would be to let this go. Let him say all the right words in all the right ways and drown me with them.

“Come back,” he says again, and it’s not a command, nor a plea. It’s somewhere in between. “You’ll feel worse if you leave.”

I shake my head slowly, staring at the space between his feet. “I don’t want to talk, and I don’t want to eat. I definitely don’t want to sit in that house pretending Sage isn’t letting Luca fuck him after lying to me.”

Liam waits. He always fucking waits. He lets me sit in my misery until I’m the one begging for relief. But this time, I beat him to it. My voice drops, small and splintered, more dangerous than if I’d yelled. “Can you make me forget?”

His eyes widen, obviously more surprised than I was that I asked that. “What?”

I look him in the eye, and this time I don’t hide the way the pain sits right behind my ribs, stretching wider with everybreath. The betrayal, the loneliness, thefuck-youcarved into my chest with every step Sage took toward Luca.

“I said, make me forget.”

There’s silence before his eyes darken with malice. It’s something I should run from, but don’t because it’s exactly what I asked for. “I thought you hated me,” he says.

“I do.” My fingers twitch at my sides. “That’s what makes it easier.”

Liam steps closer, and he reaches out. Just one hand, fingertips brushing my wrist before curling around it. His thumb presses against my pulse point hard enough to let me know he’s reading it. “You want me to do that?” he murmurs. “You want me to make you forget?”

“Please.”

He tilts his head again, studying me like I’m a broken toy he plans to put back together wrong. “I’m not going to be gentle.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t ask you to be.”

“And I won’t stop when you regret it.”

I meet his gaze, my jaw set. “Then don’t stop.”

He exhales through his nose, and for a moment, I think he’s going to back away. That he’ll push me off and call me pathetic again, or worse—say nothing and walk away like I’m not even worth a second thought.

Instead, he tugs me close, eliminating the space between us so we’re chest to chest. His other hand rises to my jaw, thumb dragging over the skin beneath my eye where it’s still red and hot. “I’ll ruin you for anyone else,” he says, the low timbre of his voice sending shivers through me. “You know that, right?”

“Everyone already ruined me.”