Page 69 of Cruel When He Smiles

Liam hums, and the sound is poison-smooth. “Not the way I will.”

I close my eyes for a second, long enough to let myself pretend none of this is real. That I’m not standing on the edge of anotherbreakdown, begging the one person who’s been manipulating me from day one to please finish breaking me the rest of the way.

He lets go of my wrist and slips a hand behind my neck instead. The pressure there is steady and wrong in the exact way I need. And then he kisses me.

It’s not gentle, but it’s not cruel either. It’s invasive and meant to push me over a ledge I already leaped from the second I asked him to make me forget. His mouth parts mine, and I let him in, breath catching, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt because if I don’t hold on to something, I’ll go weightless.

He crowds me back against the car, the heat of the metal soaking into my spine through the thin fabric of my tank. His hand finds my hip, and grips hard enough to anchor. My sunglasses get shoved back into my hair and fall off entirely. I don’t reach for them.

His teeth graze my bottom lip, and I gasp, shuddering into him as every raw edge of my emotions shatters at once.

“There’s that taste again,” he whispers, breath hot on my lips. “Sweet little contradiction. Always so fucking angry, but your mouth tells me a different story.”

He kisses me again.

And again.

And again.

Each one deeper than the last. His fingers slide under the hem of my tank, pressing flat against my side. My whole body melts at the contact, so exposed, so sudden. But I don’t stop him; I just breathe harder, louder, more desperately, as if each breath will erase the fact that Sage lied to me.

He looked me in the eyes and told me nothing was going on. Told me he didn’t trust Luca. Only to fucking abandon me at a party he practically begged me to attend.

I try to breathe through the storm in my chest. I want to punch, scream, or shove my fist into the wall until the ache in my bones replaces the one climbing through my ribs.

Because it’s not just betrayal, it’s worse. It’s that feeling you get when someone closes a door they once told you would always stay open. It’s seeing Sage—my brother, my constant—smiling into the mouth of the person who hurt him most.

And I wasn’t even worth the heads-up.

I kiss him harder, trying to breathe through the hurt clawing at my insides. I don’t cry. I don’t even let myself make a sound. I can’t hate Sage even though I want to because he’s the reason I’m still breathing. The reason I didn’t put a bullet in my head after everything that happened with my mom. The reason I get up some mornings, even when everything inside me wants to stay down.

And that’s the worst part; he’s the only person I trusted, and he didn’t even think I deserved the truth.

Liam’s fingers dig harder into my side, and I groan. “Get out of your head, Pup,” he demands after ripping his mouth away from mine.

“Make me,” I whisper. “Hurt me if you want. Just don’t let me feel anything but you.”

His hand leaves my waist and moves up. Fingers tangling in my hair, yanking back just enough to bare my throat, holding me still, making me breathe through him.

I can’t tell if I’m drowning or flying.

“I warned you,” he breathes. “This is the part where I stop being the lesser evil.”

“I never asked you to be good.”

The grip in my hair tightens hard enough to remind me I asked for this. My body’s caught between fight and fall, heart crashing against my ribs like it wants out.

But Liam doesn’t move yet. He lets the silence hang; lets it get heavy and oppressive. Then his hand slips from my hair, down to the back of my neck again, and he speaks like it’s a fucking spell.

“Come with me.”

I stare at him, searching for the reason I shouldn’t. But my chest feels hollow, carved out by the weight of everything I just saw, everything I gave and lost and never fucking deserved in return. My throat works around nothing, no argument, no bite. I give a small nod, and that’s all he needs.

He doesn’t say another word as he leads me across the Sin Bin property, stopping in a room closest to the kitchen and then down the stairs to the basement door. The noise from outside—the laughter, music, chaos—is all muffled through the walls. Liam doesn’t look back as he pulls the door open and walks in.

It’s cool inside, the air conditioning kicking hard against the back of my neck as we descend the stairs. The lights are low, two treadmills, a bench press, mirrors along one end, and free weights lined up on racks. A downstairs gym.

Of course, this is where he brings me.