Page 71 of Trapped With You

“Maybe, I came outside…” Her voice was fused with wickedness as she ran the edge of her sharp claw over my jaw like a blade. “Tofuckhim.”

I’d been beaten and tortured in the past.

But nothing came close to the wound she just dealt me.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.

My trembling hand grasped the ends of her hair, twisted them twice around my fist like a leash, and tugged her head back with ardour, forcing her to acknowledge the havoc she wrecked within me with her words. “Tell me you’re lying,mo chuisle.”

A whimper—part pain, part pleasure—escaped her parted lips. “No.”

Under the glittering stars, cratered moon, and inky night sky, she met my anguished gaze.

The heavens opened and unleashed their wrath in the form of rushing droplets that soaked us to the bones. They did nothing to cleanse us of our sins or the sensation of defeat barrelling through my frame.

Ella was my poison and remedy wrapped into one. My damnation and my salvation. My ruin and my triumph.

I loved her more than my own life.

I would die for her, kill for her, live for her.

But she was softly destroying me, twisting her knife deeper into my chest.

“Did you enjoy that?” I rasped, skimming my nose against the slender column of her throat, inhaling that tantalizing fragrance that morphed me from level-headed to a hot-blooded brute with a voracious need for her. I resisted the urge to bite her pulse. “Flirting with him to make me jealous? Touching him to rip me to shreds?”

“Yes.” Pretty venom laced her voice as she raked her claws down my chest like she wanted to slice me open. “You deserved it.”

“Is this how it’s going to be between us?” I kissed the skin under her chin. “You’ll taunt me with other boys?”

Her hands fisted the lapels of my suit. “If that’s what it takes for you to understand that we’re over, then yes.”

“Break my heart a thousand times, Ella. It’s always been yours to do with as you please,” I confessed and licked the raindrops lingering on her bottom lip. “But make no mistake…You and I? We’re meant to be. Forever.”

It was our promise.

“That was before you broke us.” She retaliated by wresting my bottom lip with her teeth until she drew blood. “Fuck you and all your promises. Go to hell, Cade.”

“I’m already there,” I snarled, panting against her mouth and tugging her hair until her whole body arched under my strength. “You fucking put me there, sweetheart.”

“Good. I hope you rot in your misery.” Over the sound of the pounding rain, Ella’s wretched words were like arrows tipped in poison, driving straight into my sternum. “Our undoing is onyou. Therefore, you don’t have a right to dictate who I speak to or fuck, you bastard. We’re over. Get it through your thick skull.”

“Please, Ella, just—”

“No. I’m done with you and your deceit.” She pressed her palms to my shoulders and shoved me away. “I wish I never met you. God, I wish Ineverlaid eyes on you.”

Her words carried over the rain and wind, coiling deep in my muscles with a chilling quality.

Never met you. Never laid eyes on you.

I’d relive the moment where I first saw her a million times if given the chance. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

Ella was the best thing to have happened to me. I lost her and I was frantic to have her back, but she refused to hear me out. I stopped myself from falling to my knees and begging her to take back what she said.

The nerve endings in my body throbbed with grief. I hated that this amazing girl, who’d once loved me with her entire soul, was looking at me like I was scum beneath her stiletto heels.

It made me feel like the neglected, broken boy who’d arrived at the Remingtons’ doorstep three years ago. The one who felt lost and inadequate. The one who was constantly fighting his demons and trying to prove to the world that he had worth.

“You don’t mean that. Please, don’t say that,” I whispered vulnerably, trying to get through to her with the only words I had left in me. “I love you, Ellie.”