Page 39 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)

“I didn’t know. All those years in that house and I didn’t know.

Dante came back to keep me away from him.

Every waking moment. It killed him, being near that sick fuck.

It killed him. He did it for me. When I finally found out, I was sixteen.

He…mydad,was drinking in the kitchen. He looked at me, the bottle in his hands. He really looked at me.”

I still see him. Eyes bloodshot. Lips slick with drool. Tears drying on his fucking face. Real goddamn tears—not a single one for Dante, only for himself.

“He begged me for forgiveness. Said he was sick. Said he was sorry.” I laugh.

The sound makes her stiffen, and something in my chest tightens up.Apparently,she’s disgusted by my show-and-tell. I wait for her to flinch away. Her fingers seek mine out instead, clenching me tighter, and my entire body thrums with the latest dose of her.

“Sorry. Can you believe that? Sorry. I wasn’t sorry.

All I really remember is that I grabbed a hammer from the table.

He’d been fixing something, but I don’t know what.

I remember the first hit, right across his mouth to shut him the fuck up.

It knocked him off his chair. It didn’t dislocate his jaw though. He was still blubbering.”

I couldn’t help it.

God, I tried…

I gotta tell him I didn’t mean to.

“I hit him again.” The story’s gone rogue.

It pours out of me, broken and tactless.

I can’t sprinkle in pretty words to decorate the gore.

I tell her everything. “He got scared then. He begged me to stop. I hit him again. And again, but…I never blacked out. I never stopped to think about what I was doing. I didn’t have to do it. ”

The admission paints the air black as coal. The only source of light is her eyes, like embers in the ashes. My ragged breathing makes them glow. Spark. Catch fire. It’s like she goads me to go on. Spit the truth out. Admit it all.

“I wanted to do it.”

So what the hell does that make me? I had the answer inked onto my chest. I wouldn’t hide behind a lie. I would never forget what I am.

My lone audience member silently digests the end of story time. She doesn’t offer up a glowing review. She doesn’t pat my head and try to comfort me with meaningless phrases like you didn’t really mean it. She listens.

And that silence is more numbing than anything I could inhale. Go fucking figure.

I instinctively know she’s not beside me when I wake up. I’m already lurching toward the door when I spot her watching me from a seat near the kitchen table, wearing only black underwear.

She got a cigarette from somewhere and managed to light it up. My throat goes dry as she drags deep and releases a plume of smoke .

I still have the gun, I see when I glance down. I test the weight of it. It’s loaded. She had quite the night, it seems. A puddle of silk is on the floor beside me. A dress. Fancy. Expensive. Black.

“I’m sorry.” She tosses the words at me between puffs. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.” I haul myself upright, clutching the wall with my free hand for balance. I tuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans. Then I join her at the table.

It’s not set up for entertaining. My sketchbook is open in the center.Apparently,she’s been flipping through it. The sketch she’s on now stares up at me. One of Dante.

“You’re good.” She flicks the ash into the ashtray in front of her and turns the page.

“It’s nothing.” I reach over and flip the book shut.

There’s nojudgmentin her gaze. No pity. None of the shit I’m used to.

“Seems like you had a rough night,” I say to change the subject.

She drags on the cigarette, making the end glow red. Whether by accident or intentional, she exhales the cloud of smoke directly into my face, and I breathe her in like a fucking addict. Smoke. Fire. Yellow.

“I just… Tell me something,” she says.

It’s a plea, not a question.

“What?”

She thinks for a minute. Whatever drove her here kept her up at night. Shadows line her eyes. Her hands are shaking. In theend,she grits her teeth and sighs, settling on a single question. “Tell me… How would you define love?”

My mouth quirks, ready to deliver a laugh, but she doesn’t even attempt to return it. She wants a serious answer, it seems. It just so happens that I have one.

“It’s pain.” I eye my sketchbook, picturing the drawings I’ve scribbled inside it. Dante. Arno. Danny. “It’s getting addicted to someone’s own personal brand of the shit. It’s letting it fuck you up. It’s wanting to be fucked up. Love is poison.”

“And hate?” She sounds even more desperate now, like a student seeking the right answers for a test. She’s trying to make sure our papers match. For some reason, she thinks I’ve paid more attention in this damn class than she has.

“Hate isn’t much different, but it is way more addictive,” I tell her.

“It’s all the shit you told yourself you don’t ever want to feel.

Anger. Rage. Jealousy. Every fucking temptation rolled into one.

You may convince yourself you despise that sting, but that’s a lie.

You crave it. It’s power. You can’t be hurt by someone you hate, so it lets you forget.

And when you finally lose control… Well, you have something to blame, don’t you?

All that hate sets you free. Free to fucking feel… everything.”

She’s silent for a minute, letting each definition sink in. “And what do you hate?”

I shrug. “Is that a trick question?” I try to play the response off with a laugh, but it trickles from my throat as a sigh. The real answer lurks within my skull. That voice only nicotine or whiskey can smother these days. Yourself.

“Do you hate…you hate when I touch you?” Her free hand flattens against the table.

I let my gaze trace every single pale finger. I’ve never been much of a liar. “Yes. I hate it.”

She’s envy and rage wrapped up in one tormented package. Her touch brings about everything I don’t want to feel. Everything I crave. Everything I fucking hate.

She inhales sharply, relishing the sting of the confession. Her gaze drifts up to meet mine above the burning embers of the cig between her two fingers. She finishes it with one harddragand puts it out amid the pile of ashes in the tray.

“Show me?”

I don’t know who moves first. Maybe she stands up.

Or maybe I beat her to it. Eitherway,I have her backed into a corner, her ass striking the edge of the counter.

She grasps theledgewith both hands and hauls herself on top of it.

Her gaze never breaks away from mine while her knees clamp onto my waist, pulling me in.

Her breathtricklesagainst my lower lip, harsh and unsteady.

I want to steal every hit of nicotine from her. That’s why I claim her mouth with mine. That’s it. She’s a living, breathing cigarette. She’ll burn me just as badly if I’m not careful.

It’s not a kiss. She bites me. I inhale her. Blood. Ash. Smoke. We’re addicts desperate to salvage whatever the fuck we can from each other. I already know her poison of choice. She just wants to forget.

Her fingers fan out along my back. Feeling. Flexing. I copy her, only my hands aim too low, and she groans into my ear. Angry. Pissed.

She hates me. I hate this .

I show her how much. I lose control, if only for a second.

My hands are beneath the lace of her thong, grasping at her skin, tearing through the curls between her legs.

I find her pussy and sink in, and she nearly comes off the damn counter.

I have to use my body to pin her flat against the bottom of a cupboard.

I hold her like that. I trap her like that.

She’s captive, held by my fingertips. I own her. I’ll break her.

I release her.

She’s panting when I do, her yellow eyes damp and unfocused. I can almost hear the plea she’s too proud to say. Not yet. Not yet.

I have to inject her into my veins again. Just a little. One more hit.

I slide a hand between her legs again and tease her with the pad of my thumb. The sounds she makes work on my control like a hammer, and I come apart bit by bit by fucking bit.

I kiss her again. I bite her. Hard. Harder. She moans at the pain, raking her fingers through my hair, her nails digging in to pull me closer as she writhes against my dick. I can feel her through the denim. Fuck, I need… I want…

No.

I push away from her, my fingers pawing at the counter for leverage. She doesn’t attempt to pull me back. She stares up at me, her head braced against the edge of a cupboard. Everything she’s thinking spills from her eyes. She thinks it’s her. She’s not pretty enough. Sexy enough. Whatever.

That never used to bother me before. Control was all that mattered. All that does matter.

With one fucking needy, desperate look, she shatters it.

I’m on her again, my mouth open. I let her show me where to touch her, her hands clawing at my shoulders, pulling me down.

My teeth graze her bare breast. Her stomach.

Lower. I don’t hesitate to sink my fingers beneath thelacyfabric and drag it down.

Her legs spread for me, her hands fisting in my hair.

I take her hard, like a fucking shot. All at once. No drop of whiskey has ever burned me worse. I’ve never tripped this badly on liquor. She’s in my head. She’s in my fucking skin. Her heat. Her moans. I’m too fucking weak to block her out.

I drag on her. Greedy. Hungry. I take everything she has to give. I take, and I take—every last drop. Every last gasp. My pants feel like a fucking vise, but I still have enough shred of control to pull back before it’s too late.

Withdrawing from her is like surfacing from underwater. I’m gasping. She’s panting, still riding the high of whatever she feels in the aftermath of…this. Her eyes find mine, watching as I stagger back against the table and throw my hands out to brace my weight against it.