Chapter Forty-Six
Creed
Slowly, I turn to face her, and damn it, she is beauty incarnate, everything I have ever wanted in a woman and more, and that’s not the mark. I felt this before it happened, before I doomed her to X2 chromosome hell. And as if she’s read my mind, she says, “You know what, Creed. I don’t give a damn about your chromosomes, X2 or otherwise, because yes, I know about your bloodwork. They don’t scare me, but what does is the way you seem to excel at hurting me.”
Torment rakes over her features—torment I’ve created—but I remind myself I’m trying to do right by her. I’m protecting her. “I’m trying to do what’s right.”
She is not pleased with that answer. “As I’ve said before, if it’s that easy for you to shut me out, the lifebond connection isn’t that powerful. And that’s fine.” She holds her belly as if pain stabs at her. “I need another place to stay tonight.”
The idea of her leaving guts me. “You can stay here.”
“No,” she says firmly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “No, I can’t. I won’t. This is your space. I don’t want to be here. The fact that you can’t be when I am makes me nothing but an intruder.”
“Addie—”
“No,” she says again. “And we need to be far away from each other when I return to ensure we’re not in contact. Then we can both move on with our lives. Please call whoever you need to call to get me another room. I’ll gather what few things I have.” She starts to turn and hesitates to drive a knife into my gut. “The good news in this is how we protect each other, Creed. No one else can end up with your mark, or so we think. You can find someone else and do what you want with her. I guess… I guess I can, too.”
Oh, hell no. Another man touching her, holding her, making her moan…It boils my blood. I shackle her wrist and drag her to me, the thick ridge of my cock pressing to her stomach. “You will not let another man touch you.”
Her chin lifts. “You cannot have it both ways, Creed. Either you are with me or you are not. There is no in-between. Not anymore. I won’t live like that.”
For a moment, I squeeze my eyes shut, reaching for control where there seemed none to be found. And when I look at her, I tell her as much. “Intentionally pushing me is dangerous, Addie. Didn’t you listen to those women at that table today?”
“I listened to them,” she says. “Seems like you did a lot of pretending to be an asshole. You might scare some people, but you will never scare me. And after I finished with those women, you don’t scare them either.”
Her stubbornness is arousing. Her lips tempt me, full and dewy. A taste. One taste is all I need. No, I warn myself. There is no such thing with Addie. “Will you never stop being a damn fool?”
“Will you?” she half pants, half whispers.
“Damn you, woman,” I hiss, my hand gliding over her slender waist to the swell of her breast that fits perfectly in my palm. “Is that what you want, Addie?” Her nipple stiffens beneath my touch, and I rub it through her clothing. “You want me to touch you?”
She arches into my touch. “Yes.”
“You want me to pleasure you?” I ask roughly, shoving down her top and bra in one deft move, freeing her nipple and tugging. She moans, one of her sweet, sexy moans, and I’m hotter, harder.
I scoop her perfect perky ass and mold her hips to mine. She rewards me with a sweet, aroused sound that vibrates through my body and thickens my cock.
I dip my head and inhale the scent of her. “You smell like spring.” I brush my lips over hers, and I’m not sure how I will ever live without her. “You taste like candy. I could lick you from head to toe and do it all over again. Spread you wide and taste you when you come.”
She shivers. “Isn’t this against the rules you’ve set? No touching? No talking? No—”
I rotate her and press her to the wall, pressing her hands to the wall, ensuring she doesn’t touch me. “What part of I’m trying to do what’s right do you not understand?”
“I’m sorry, but I think your hand on my breast and your cock thick against my belly are a little contradictory to your hands-off declaration, Creed.” Her voice vibrates with anger. “What do you want from me? I love you, damn it.”
“Don’t,” I rage, my damn hair escaping the tie at my neck and falling wildly around my face. “Don’t love me, Addie.” With every bit of will I have left, I push away from her, distancing myself.
She turns around, letting her head fall back against the wall, and Lord, help me, my gaze sweeps the stiff peaks of her nipples, puckered in the cool air of the apartment.
I take another step backward.
“I don’t know how to get through to you,” she whispers softly, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know if I should even be trying.” Her chin lowers, and she stares at me with so much pain and so much helplessness etched in her face that I can barely breathe knowing I’ve done this to her. “I need you, Creed, and I know you need me. I know you need me to love you more than you hate yourself. I do. And that’s the only reason I’m still here. Because you’re standing on a deserted island of your own creation, and I’m in a lifeboat, trying to get to you.” She pulls her shirt up and pushes off the wall, walks to the kitchen, and returns a second later with a knife in her hand.
What the hell?
“This is how sure I am of our bond. How much I love you. How much I want you to stop pushing me away.” Before I understand her intent, before I have any idea what she plans, she’s already acted. She slices her palm, blood spilling from the delicate, pale skin. The knife falls from her hand. “Oh God. Oh God. Okay, that hurt more than I thought it would.” Her voice creeks from her lips.
I’m by her side in an instant, scooping her up and carrying her to the bathroom. “Are you insane, woman?” I set her on the counter, grab a towel, and wrap it around her hand. “What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers, her face downturned, her voice cracking with a hint of agony.
I press my forehead to hers and run a hand down her hair. “Addie.” I whisper and tilt her chin upward, her gaze to mine, her green eyes glistening. She’s stunningly human, and I can’t take that from her. “We have to go get you stitches.”
“ You heal me,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You, Creed. Whatever you are, we are together, in life or death.” She sucks in a shaky breath. “I don’t want to do this without you, any of it.”
I go still with those words reaching inside my soul and speaking to me. Words I have thought about her a million times. I don’t want to do any of this without her. I think of her outside of Sunrise City, of the Zodius hunting us, and how easily she could have taken a bullet that ended her. Yes, she dies if I die, but she has a far better chance of surviving as a GETCH than otherwise.
And one way or the other, Julian will come for her. He will kill her. This world is a world of GTECHs now. Whatever we will be, we do need to be together.
I reach down to my pant leg and remove the knife I’ve strapped there, hold out my hand, and slice it open.
Big pearly tears glisten down Addie’s cheeks as I unwrap the towel from her hand.
“And I cannot breathe without you,” I whisper. “But once this is done, there is no turning back. We really do live and die together. And whatever monster I become, you will never escape me. You need to understand that, Addie.”
“You are not a monster, and you never will be,” she says, grabbing my hand and pressing her palm to mine. “If it takes me a lifetime to make you see that, then so be it.” She seals our hands together.
I’m fucking trembling with emotion, with the magnitude of what she had just done, with the trust she has in me that I don’t dare have in myself.
One by one, I kiss away her tears and cradle her cheek with my hand, repeating the vow that I never want her to forget. “I love you.”
“I love you, Creed.”
With all my heart and soul, I silently add that I will be the man she sees in me, not the man my parents wanted me to become. I kiss her tenderly, gently, and pull back to watch the green of her eyes go black. At least for a little while, until the transition is complete and I’m the only one who gets to see the glorious green of her stare ever again. I guide our sealed palms between us and slowly release her hand, wiping the towel over her skin and showing her that our wounds have healed.
Addie stares down at her hand, touches her palm, then looks up at me. “Is it done? That easily?”
“You know, as well as I do, that you might be sick, but I’m hoping that you’ve been on the verge of the change so long that it won’t happen.”
I stroke a thumb over her bottom lip. “God, you’re beautiful. And you’re mine now.”
She smiles up at me and says, “Since the day I met you.”