Page 19 of Cruel When He Smiles (Sinners of Blackthorne U #3)

Nate

Before I can talk myself out of it, I walk off the pitch and through the gate. The sun’s dipped behind the trees, and the path toward the parking lot is dim in the fading light. I spot him near the far end, just as he’s unlocking his car door.

“Liam,” I call out, my voice too loud in the stillness. He pauses with his hand still on the door handle, his back straightening before he turns around.

I stop a few feet from him, chest heaving from the run, breath teetering between panic and confusion, and caught between everything I want to say and everything I’ve buried for too long.

His eyes find mine, steady and unreadable in the low light. “You okay?”

“No,” I breathe, and it sounds broken. “No, I’m not okay.”

He doesn’t look surprised. If anything, he looks like he was expecting that answer. “Then why’d you let me walk away?” he asks.

“Because I don’t know what the fuck you want from me,” I snap, my frustration catching fire.

“You suddenly fucking care, and I don’t get why.

You spent weeks needling me until I snapped.

You made me out to be unhinged just to get those sessions.

You act like none of this gets to you, and then—then you do shit like the other night.

Or just now. You show up when no one else does and say things that—” My voice cracks before I can stop it. “Just tell me why. ”

He studies me for a few seconds, the key still resting between his fingers. His gaze drops to my fists clenched at my sides, then back up to my face. I know I’m not hiding anything well. My expression’s probably fucked, eyes red, jaw too tight to pretend anymore.

“I saw something in you the other night,” he says finally, tone flat. “Something I buried in myself a long time ago.”

I stare at him, frowning. “What do you mean?” I ask; my throat’s already raw, so what’s one more scraped word?

“I mean,” he says, closing the distance with that same unshakable calm he always carries, “that when you screamed in that hotel room, I recognized it. Not just the sound, but the way it tore out of you. That kind of scream doesn’t come from nowhere.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat closes around any sound that might try escaping.

He keeps going. “I used to have night terrors, too. I used to wake up so soaked in sweat I’d have to change the sheets before my dad noticed. Used to count the seconds after I opened my eyes, trying to figure out what year I was in.”

I blink. That shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

“Why are you telling me this?” I whisper.

“Because I know what it’s like to feel like the world’s moved on without you,” he says. “To feel like everyone else is just… functioning. And you’re still trapped somewhere no one else can see.”

The tears burn before they fall. I try to hold them in, to blink them back or swallow them down, or do anything but let them win. But they come anyway, silent and stubborn.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “I don’t even know who I’m supposed to talk to anymore. Sage doesn’t care. My parents sure as hell don’t. Dr. Ellis is too fucking stupid to see something’s wrong with me. And you—”

My voice cracks and dies. I can’t say it. I can’t say what he means to me because I don’t even understand it myself.

I don’t know when he got inside my head, or when the lines between hate and need started blurring. Or why I let him touch me and didn’t flinch, or why his voice is the only thing that doesn’t send me spiraling when I’m stuck in a nightmare I can’t climb out of.

I don’t know why I trust him, but I fucking do.

A bitter sound leaves me before I can stop it. A weak, barely-there laugh. My head drops, and I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, but it’s too late.

Liam steps into me without hesitation, and he doesn’t ask for permission. He presses a hand against my jaw, and his thumb catches a tear before it can fall. His fingers are warm, and his eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them.

“Hey,” he murmurs, thumb brushing beneath my eye. “Don’t do that. Don’t hold it in.”

I shake my head. “I can’t—”

“You can,” he says, then he’s pulling me into his arms.

I don’t want to cry in front of him. But my chest pulls tight, and the pressure behind my eyes won’t back down. I try to breathe through it, but it comes out ragged, and the harder I fight it, the more it wins.

It’s not even loud, it’s worse than that. It’s quiet and pathetic. The kind of crying that sneaks up on you when you’re so fucking tired of pretending everything’s fine. It comes in waves that don’t look dramatic from the outside but are violent underneath.

His arms slide around me, and I don’t resist. I should, but instead, everything inside me gives out all at once.

I press my face into his chest, shoulders shaking with every silent cry I’ve been biting back for weeks. He holds me tighter—one hand on the back of my neck, the other splayed across my spine, grounding me without a word.

And I let myself fall apart in the arms of the one person I never expected to find comfort in; the same arms that once bruised me now steady me.

I don’t know how long we stand there, but eventually, my breathing evens out. Eventually, the tears slow, and I’m still clinging to him. He doesn’t let go. Not even when I try to step back, ashamed and exposed and too raw to look him in the eyes.

“Nate,” he says, his voice gentle. “Look at me.”

I look up, and his expression seems a little tense and tired, but honest.

“I’m not here to fuck with you,” he says. “I’m not doing this to win a game or play some long con. I’m not the monster you built in your head.”

I don’t know if I believe that. “Then what are you?”

His lips twitch into the ghost of a smile. “I’m the one who saw past the armor you wear. I’m the one who noticed the cracks before anyone else did. And I’m the one who’s not going anywhere.”

That scares me more than anything—more than my mother’s voice, more than the nightmares, and more than being alone. I know he’s dangerous in ways I don’t fully understand yet, and part of me wants to believe him even though I know I shouldn’t. Even though I know what people do when they get close.

They leave. They lie. They destroy.

But right now, held in his arms, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Safe.

His thumb grazes my cheek again, softer this time, like he’s memorizing the feel of my skin. I try to look away, but he doesn’t let me. His hand moves, cupping my face in his palm, fingers curling along the edge of my jaw.

The warmth of his skin makes my chest seize up, trapped between want and fear, between the need to run and the ache to stay rooted in the moment.

I don’t move or even breathe. I just stand there, heart pounding in my throat, tears still clinging to the edges of my lashes, and let him hold my face as if he’d done it a hundred times before.

“Nate,” he says again, quieter this time. Just my name, nothing else. But it hits deeper than anything else has today.

I meet his gaze, and I realize it’s not only me shaking anymore. “You drive me crazy,” he whispers, leaning in slowly. “And I don’t even think you realize how loud you are when you’re silent.”

His lips are barely a breath from mine when I finally exhale.

And then his mouth finds mine with a purpose that I don’t understand but can’t turn away from. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t demand. He just takes—steadily, thoroughly—and I let him.

His hand cradles my jaw, tilting my face up as he deepens the kiss, tongue sliding against mine, and I melt. I don’t mean to, it just happens. My fingers grip the front of his sweatshirt again, holding onto him the way you hold onto something when the ground falls out from under you.

And maybe that’s exactly what this is. Maybe I’ve been falling for a while, and I didn’t notice until his mouth was on mine again.

I gasp when his teeth catch my lower lip, not sharp enough to draw blood, but enough to sting. He pulls back to look at me, his breathing uneven, his eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them.

“You still think I don’t care?”

I shake my head, jaw tight and nerves shredded. “I don’t know what to think.”

His thumb traces the edge of my lip again. “That’s okay,” he whispers. “I’ll show you.”

His forehead touches mine for a moment, and I feel the warmth of him, the steadiness in his breathing, the calm control he’s trying to lend me. Then his hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck again, fingers threading into my hair, holding me there as if he’s afraid I’ll bolt.

But I don’t.

For the first time, I don’t feel the need to run.