Page 126 of What You left in Me

“What?” she pants, miserable and beautiful.

“That you’ve always wanted me.”

Her eyes shine, fury and tears and everything I like to keep for myself. “I…” She stops, shakes, hates me enough to tell the truth. “I’ve always wanted you.”

I reward her for that honesty with my hands. The sound she makes goes into my bones and stays there.

She fights me the whole time. She kisses me back like she’s trying to bruise the past into a different shape. When I pull away an inch to look at her, she tries to follow my mouth like surrender is a magnet. I don’t let her. I make her meet my eyes, again and again, until her breathing turns ragged.

“I’m yours,” I say, and her eyes flutter because she hates how badly that lands. “And you’re mine.”

“Say it,” I order.

“No.”

“Say it,” I repeat, and lace my fingers with hers, pinning her wrists to the floor. I’m on top of her again. My mouth hovers a breath from hers. “Mine.”

“You don’t…” She chokes on the protest. I press my hand low, and the protest disintegrates. “Yours,” she gasps, like the word itself is release. “Fuck. Yours.”

“Good girl,” slips out before I can stop it. She shudders and I feel it everywhere.

“I still hate you,” she says, because she needs the thorn.

“I know.” I bite her shoulder, gentle. “I plan to make you say you hate me until you can’t.”

“Arrogant,” she grinds. “Smug.”

“Correct.” I lift my head a fraction. “Look at me.”

She does. She always does. When she comes apart again, it’s with my name in her mouth like she’s spitting it and drinking it at once. And I, fuck, I’m gone. I hold on to her wrists like a promise. I don’t stop looking at her. I don’t stop until she’s panting against my throat, whispering curses and prayers that both answer to me.

I lift her even though I’m out of energy and take her to the bed. We don’t speak for a stretch of seconds that feel like new law being written. Her cheek is damp as it rests against my jaw.

She’s the one who breaks the silence. “I want it off,” she whispers, voice wrecked. “Not because I’m leaving. Because I want todecideto stay.”

I drag my knuckles down her spine. “You think I don’t know the difference?”

“Take it off,” she says again, softer. There’s no threat left in it. Only truth. “Please.”

The word turns me inside out. I reach for the drawer, for the key. It’s a stupid, small piece of metal. It weighs more in my hand than it should.

“Look at me,” I say again, because I’m selfish and because I want this in her eyes. She looks. I turn the key. The lock clicks. The anklet slips, cool against my fingers, and I slide it free.

She exhales like she’s been underwater for a week. The mark it leaves is a pale band on warm skin, a ring of claim the world won’t see but I always will.

“Better?” I ask.

She nods. Then, she ruins me: she sets her foot back on the drawer and holds her ankle out to me, not a challenge this time, but an offering. “You can put it back on tomorrow,” she says, whisper-soft. “If you ask.”

I’m fucked.Thoroughly, eternally. “Deal.”

She laughs. A tear slips; I catch it with my mouth and taste salt and fury and relief.

She presses her forehead to mine. “I can’t live without you,” she says. “I tried for a week. I can’t.”

“Good,” I say, because honesty is all I’ve got left to give her ugly and wrapped in my hands. “Same.”

She closes her eyes, breath ghosts against my lips. “I still hate you.”