Page 133 of His To Erase

“The way you flinch—and still don’t pull away. The necklace you won’t take off. The look you get when someone puts their hands on you.”

My stomach drops.

What the fuck?That hits lower than I want to admit. I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have called him.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I snap. But my voice sounds thinner than I want it to.

He lets out a quiet sound—half exhale, half something crueler. “I know enough.”

“Fuck you,” I whisper, but there’s no power behind it.

His mouth tilts just slightly. “Not yet,” he says.

My thighs clench before I can stop them, like my body’s already imagining exactly what that would feel like. I swallow hard, and I can feel my breath getting more uneven, and I hatehow fast I go from furious to needing something violent with his name on it.

“Jesus,” I breathe. “Do you even hear yourself?”

He doesn’t answer.

“You’re pissed at me and I don’t even know why.” My voice sharpens. “You keep looking at me like I’ve done something I owe you an apology for, and honestly I’m sick of it.”

Still nothing. And that pisses me off more than anything else.

“You think I wanted this?” I snap. “You think I like being watched? Followed? Having to ask for help from someone who looks at me like I’m about to ruin his whole week on purpose?”

He glances at me—just enough to catch the fury in my eyes, but not enough to flinch from it.

“You called me,” he says.

“I didn’t want to.”

“But you did.”

His words land like a slap I want to lean into and my jaw tightens and so do my thighs. Because underneath all the rage and deflection, there’s a part of me—rotten and starving—that doesn’t want safety or softness.

It wants him.

I can’t even look at him right now without wondering how his body would feel wrapped around mine.

“No one forced you into the car.”

My head whips toward him, pulse spiking. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

His jaw ticks. “You walked out that door. You followed me. So don’t pretend you didn’t choose this.”

I want to scream. I want to tell him that choosing something doesn’t make it safe. That needing someone doesn’t make them good. That fear and desire—sometimes taste the same. One burns. The other cuts. But either way, you bleed.

But I don’t say any of that.

My thighs are clenched so tight that I can feel the slick heat between them like a confession I didn’t agree to give. And no matter how hard I pretend otherwise, some sick, wrecked part of me wants to see what he’ll do if I keep pushing him.

I don’t answer, because if I do, it’s going to be a moan. So I keep looking out the window, pretending the trees are more interesting than the heat pooling in my core, and pretend I don’t feel him watching me, cataloging every breath, every shift, and every goddamn betrayal of my body. Everything is happening so fast, and I think I’m going to be sick.

“Pull over,” I say.

It’s barely a whisper, but I watch as his knuckles flex on the wheel, knowing he heard me. He yanks the wheel hard and pulls us off the road, tires grinding against gravel until we’re swallowed by trees and shadows.

The second the car stops, I’m out, slamming the door behind me like that’ll shove the fire back where it belongs—in my chest, not between my legs.