Page 51 of Cruel When He Smiles (Sinners of Blackthorne U #3)

Liam

I slam my bedroom door hard enough to shake the frame, and the crack echoes through the Sin Bin like a gunshot in a church.

No one comes running, and no one asks questions. This house was built for noise, built on broken boys and bad decisions. It doesn’t flinch anymore. Just groans under the weight of our damage and waits for the next mess to clean up.

Ten guys, ten secrets, ten different flavors of chaos stitched into a home that shouldn’t work but somehow does.

My coat slides from my shoulder, and I shrug it off with a careless flick, aiming for the bed but watching it crumple onto the floor. I don’t bother picking it up. I don’t bend, don’t adjust, don’t pretend to give a shit. I go straight for the dresser with my jaw clenched so tightly it hurts.

My hands are shaking. I pretend I don’t notice.

I dig my fingers into the edge of the drawer, not pulling it open yet. Instead I try to centre myself against the cool wood and the familiar tension that coils there. I’m wound so tightly, I feel like I might snap.

I hate Nate Carter for making me feel things that don’t come with clear names. For looking at me like I’m not a monster, and smiling at me after everything I’ve done to him. I hate that his voice is still in my head, all breathy and shaky, whispering mine, too .

I yank the top drawer open, then slam it shut again. My fingers drift toward the third one—the one I only touch when everything else stops working. My left hand twitches; hovering, hesitating.

“You really need to work on your awareness.”

My stomach swoops, but I don’t turn around right away. I didn’t notice him, and that… that’s a problem.

With a sigh, I twist around slowly. Killian’s in my deskchair, one leg draped lazily over the other, Zippo lighter flicking open and shut in his hand without a cigarette in sight. He’s been waiting.

Of course he has.

He watches me the way only he can—like a hunter studying something already bleeding. I hate being under his gaze, but I need it. The contradiction makes me sicker.

“Second time you’ve come storming in here, gone so deep in your own head you didn’t realize you weren’t alone,” he says, flicking the lighter shut and my left hand twitches again. He immediately notices. “Don’t.”

I push off the dresser. “I wasn’t—”

He’s up in a flash, all six-three of him slamming into me like a bullet, his hand wrapping around my throat before I can blink.

He drives me into the wall, causing books to fall off the shelves and the lamp to shake on the desk.

My back hits the plaster, and I suck in a sharp breath as his thumb presses against my windpipe hard enough to remind me who taught me how to breathe.

His eyes are the same blue as our father’s—same downward slant, same glint of something unholy hiding just behind the surface. The only difference is that Killian doesn’t hide it. He never has.

“Breathe,” he says coldly, “before you even think about that drawer.”

My eyes widen. “I wasn’t—”

“Don’t insult me by pretending you weren’t going for it. Third drawer. Right side. Your left hand was twitching before you made it two steps.”

I laugh, breathless. “You stalking me now?”

He bares his teeth in something that’s not a smile. “I’ll break your fucking fingers if you go near that blade.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I croak, my eyes watering as the pressure against my throat stays steady.

“No, but it might be the last,” he says, and it may look like he’s just being an overprotective brother, but Killian doesn’t do overprotective. He does violence, ownership, and brotherhood like a dagger to the gut—sharp, effective, and not always survivable.

I stop resisting and let myself feel the wall against my back, the pressure on my neck, and the tremor in my own chest that I’m trying to deny. He sees it, and he holds me there until the panic crests, then breaks.

I swallow against his palm. “You don’t get it.”

“Then make me get it,” he growls.

I shove him off me, breathing hard, chest heaving as I pace the room, trying to bleed it out of me. “It’s not obsession anymore,” I snap. “It’s worse.”

Killian watches me silently, his eyes tracking me the way they always do. Calculating, but not uncaring.

I drag both hands through my hair, tugging until my scalp burns. “I wanted to break him, Kill. That was the fucking plan. Manipulate him, push him, unravel him just to see what’s underneath. That’s all it was supposed to be.”

“And now?”

I stop pacing, staring at the floor like it’s got answers. “Now, I don’t want anyone else to even look at him.”

Killian’s quiet for a beat, then says, “You don’t just want to own him, do you?” he says, angling his head as he continues to study me. “You care.”

I flinch and he immediately glares at me.

“Stop that,” he snaps. “ You care . It doesn’t make you weak.”

“It makes me vulnerable.”

“Yeah, it does,” he agrees. “But he’s the first one who’s ever made you feel anything you couldn’t control. That’s not a threat, Liam. That’s the point.”

Killian’s expression changes then; the amusement fades, the teasing edge dulls, then he straightens and steps forward. “How did he do this to you?”

“I don’t fucking know,” I admit, my voice cracking at the edge. “He got under my skin, and now I can’t get him out. I breathe him, I dream about him, and I don’t even want anyone else. I can’t think straight unless I know where he is.”

Killian stares at me, hard. “You’re in love with him.”

I recoil. “No. Don’t—don’t say that shit.”

“Liam—”

“No!” I shout, my throat raw. “Don’t reduce this to that . It’s not love. It’s not sweet or soft, it’s violent. It’s a fucking need that eats me alive.”

Killian doesn’t flinch. “You think I don’t know what that is?” I look away and he steps closer. “You remember what I told you when we got our tattoos?”

I close my eyes. “You told me love wasn’t something people like us get.”

Killian nods. “Exactly. We weren’t made for it, not the way other people were. But I’ve learned there’s a version of it that does exist for us. The feral kind. The obsessive kind. The kind that looks like possession.”

I shake my head, but he’s not done.

“You’re not spiraling because you care,” he says. “You’re spiraling because you don’t know how to handle caring.”

I say nothing, and he steps right into my space, then grips the back of my neck and pulls our foreheads together, like he used to do when I was younger and scared and too fucked up to admit I was.

“You’re not weak for feeling this,” he says quietly.

“You’re just not used to it. And the reason it’s killing you is because he’s the first thing you haven’t been able to control. ”

I close my eyes and listen to his breathing, trying to ground myself in the constant in and out.

“Do you want him?” Killian asks.

I answer with an immediate, “Yes.”

“Then take him.”

“It’s not that simple,” I laugh, bitter and broken. “He’s the only person, besides you, who looks at me and doesn’t flinch or run away.”

Killian smirks. “Then hang onto him before he learns how.”

I lean back and look at him then, really look. Killian, who taught me how to survive. Killian, who sharpened my edges and told me how to use them. Killian, who’s the only reason I’m still standing.

He’s telling me it’s okay to feel this way.

“You’re not gonna talk me down next time,” I say.

He shrugs. “Then I’ll break your ribs instead of your fingers.”

I sigh and let myself fall onto the bed, exhaling. Killian sits across from me, arms crossed, eyes still on mine.

“You feel too much, Liam,” he says. “You always have. You just buried it under control. But now?”

Now, I don’t have control, and it’s wrecking me. I don’t want to stop because the wreckage is Nate Carter.

And, fuck, I want every broken piece.

Killian stands and heads for the door, but pauses on his way out. “Next time you spiral, don’t wait until your hands start shaking. Come find me. I’ll choke the clarity back into you.”

I glance up. “You always know?”

“You’re my brother,” he says, looking at me over his shoulder, “I feel it when you go quiet.” Then he leaves without another word, and I sit on the bed, staring at the wall with Nate’s voice still echoing in my skull.

Mine, too .

And, this time, I don’t feel the urge to run from it. I just want to hear him say it again.