Page 96 of Cruel When He Smiles

But with Nate… fuck, with Nate, everything gets messy. That phone call stripped the edge right off him. It didn’t just rattle him—it gutted him, yet I felt like I was the one getting skinned alive.

I’m not used to this feeling. This ugly, suffocating pressure in my lungs. It’s not protectiveness or some noble desire to save him from his past.

I don’t save people, I break them. I own them. But I need all of Nate. I need every inch of him—every fractured thought, every secret he’s still too scared to say aloud, every trembling exhale he hasn’t let me hear yet. I want it all. I deserve it all.

And whoever the fuck had their voice inside his head today, whoever made him fold in on himself like that, they’re in my way, and I don’t tolerate obstacles. Not when it comes to what’s mine.

If I have to use sex to hollow him out again, I will. If I have to pull him apart with praise and control, with soft hands and softer lies, I’ll do it. If I have to wrap myself around him like smoke and poison every other connection he has—fine. So be it.

But I won’t call this love.

I won’t.

Love makes you weak, it makes you desperate and leaves you vulnerable. I’ve spent my whole life learning how to cut those things out.

My mother tried to teach me that vulnerability was strength. That emotions were tools. That human behavior, as she always called it, could be weaponized if you knew the right angles. I took that lesson and warped it until I became the sharpest version of her design, and then I turned it on her.

So, no, this isn’t love.

He’s my best creation, my favorite experiment, and my most addictive game. He’s the only person who ever managed to shake me off center—and I hate it, but I fucking crave it too. The way he mouths off, even when he’s begging for my touch. The way he breaks and still looks me in the eye like he wants to bite my fucking throat out.

I’ve never had someone like him.

And I’ll be damned if I let someone else break him before I finish the job.

The knock comes exactly when I expect it.

Not too soon, not too late. Right on time.

I take my time getting to the door, rolling my shoulders, smoothing out the tension in my fingers before wrapping them around the handle and pulling it open. And there he is, standing in my doorway, looking like he wants to be anywhere but here.

His arms are crossed over his chest, his jaw tight, the same stubborn set to his shoulders that I’ve come to expect from him whenever he tries to act like he still has control. His green eyes flick over me once, assessing, but there’s something else there too—something guarded, something hesitant, something that tells me he’s still thinking about the phone call I interrupted this afternoon.

Good, because so am I.

I lean against the doorframe, tilting my head, studying him like I have all the time in the world. “You came.”

Nate scoffs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You told me to.”

I smirk. “And you always do what you’re told?”

His lips part, a retort already forming, but I watch as he stops himself, and how his fingers twitch against his biceps like he’s still not sure if he should be pushing me right now.

I like that.

I step aside, gesturing into my bedroom. “Get in, Pup.”

Nate hesitates for a second, just long enough for me to see that flicker of resistance, of whatever instinct he has left screaming at him to run. But he ignores it. He steps inside, brushing past me without looking up, his body tense and wound too tightly as if he’s expecting something to happen the second the door closes behind him.

I don’t touch him yet. I let the silence stretch between us as I shut the door, watching the way his shoulders rise and fall with his breathing.

I smirk. “Relax, I’m not gonna bite unless you want me to.”

Nate finally looks at me with narrowed eyes, but I can see the weariness there. “What happened today?”

His expression hardens immediately. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”