Page 44 of Wristlocked

He turns his head, inches away, and for a second, I think he’s finally going to hit me, gray eyes feral and fists clenched. He sucks in a ragged breath and starts to pull away, then drags his eyes back to mine.

“You hurt her,” he says. Not a warning or a question, but flat and broken.

I put my lips against his ear. “Every. Fucking. Time.”

Now come fucking rescue her.

24

Gia

He doesn’t knock. The door crashes open, and a six-foot-two tempest blows into my room.

Lyot.

The look on his face is one I’ve never seen before, and my whole body clenches in response, heat and fear colliding in an intoxicating cocktail that makes my pussy ache.

“What did you let him do?” His voice is soft, dangerous.

“Lyot.” I sound breathless to my own ears. He slams the door and stalks toward me, filling my space, and I’m suddenly hyperaware of his size as he towers over me, nothing but storm in his eyes. After all this time ignoring me, the sudden, vitalimmediacyof him is almost too much. I fight the urge to throw myself at him, to score his perfect skin and lick the wounds clean.

“What. Did. You. Let. Him. Do?”

I claw at the shreds of myself, summoning my defiance and wrapping it around me like armor.

“I let him fuck me in the ass.” I hold his gaze and inhale the shudder that tears through him, leeching away a portion of his rage.

“Why him?”

“Younever asked.”

“I asked. You said no.”

“One time. We were fifteen, and I was scared.”

“Bullshit.” He turns away, pacing the short length between me and the door, looking back with a wry twist of his lips. “You’ve never been scared of my dick.”

“Well, I was scared of that.” My own anger is rising now, licking out at him. “And by the time I wasn’t, you had more than enough ass to fuck at the snap of your fingers.”

“And I got fucking good at it,” he rages. “That’s how you should have known I’d take care of you.”

We stare at each other, both of us breathing hard.

“I always took care of you.” The raw pain in his voice drags me toward him. I reach up and lay my hand against his cheek.

“I was supposed to be your first everything,” he whispers, closing his eyes and turning his face into my palm. Only for a moment, and then he jerks away. “Tell me what he gives you,” he says. “Tell me again what was worth throwing us over for.”

“I never said it was worth it,” I whisper. “And you know the answer to that.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Why? What good will it do?”

“Because I deserve the truth, Gia. Your whole truth, from your lips. I gave youeverything—” Each line of his beautiful body is carved in anguish, and it rips the words from my vicious, traitorous heart.

“Pain! He gives me pain.”

It cuts him like we both knew it would, and I watch him tuck the broken pieces away as the barrier of all the things I should have told him falls over his eyes.