Chapter 55 #3
“You’re a goofy idiot.” I rolled her eyes and let a fumbling smile cross my face for a second. The throbbing in my heart tugged it back down, reminding me once again why we were fighting. “Quinntessa, listen to me: we can’t. We can’t. I’m going to end up hurting you.”
“Then hurt me,” she whispered.
Shivers.
I felt cold as ice. My entire body tingled as her face washed away any emotion other than desperation. Her devotion to me made me want to hurl. It made me want to squeal and jump around with happiness that she wanted me so badly. It made me want to kill her just to put us both out of our misery.
I wanted her. I wanted her so badly, I could feel her holding my heart in her hands.
“Don’t leave me here.” Tears fell to my hands as I slowly stepped away from her red face, unraveling us from one another. “You can’t leave me to fall on my own. I can’t stop, Eleanor.”
Eleanor.
When she said it, it sounded heavenly, like she was a goddess calling me out of the dark basement I’d been chained inside since childhood. She offered me a hand and wanted to yank me free from my sins. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Why couldn’t I just take her hand and let her drag me out of here?
She wouldn’t make me choose.
Quinntessa or Estelle. I could hear the dark father’s words. I knew exactly what he would say to me as he dragged me back toward the fire in the cellar. Quinntessa or Estelle! Quinntessa or Estelle!
My fingers gripped my hair, knocking my bandanna out of place. I turned away from her and curled into my body at the waist, peeking back to look at Quinntessa when she uttered a painful question.
“Was this a game?”
I was crying. My eyeliner was surely smeared. I really needed to start investing in waterproof eyeliner with how much Quinntessa had me sobbing lately.
“Everyone told me I was nothing but a game to you.” Quinntessa weakly shrugged, her smile struggling to force up. “I never believed them. Tell me if I should believe them.”
Stop. Stop this. How far was the drop out this window? Because I was ten seconds from throwing myself out it and hoping I died.
“Tell me if it’s all a lie. Tell me you can’t love me!”
“Fuck, Quinntessa!” I kicked a beer can left in the room and gripped my hair so hard, my hands started to shake. “Can’t you see I’m already trapped?”
By our family.
By my relationships.
By my grandparents.
By my father.
By her.
Quinntessa had me in chains. I couldn’t comprehend the way she did this so smoothly, like pick pocketing me on the street but instead handcuffing ten pound balls of steel to my ankles and dragging me down into her trap.
She had me. She had me in every way possible, and I didn’t even have that much control over myself.
My knees hit the ground hard. I exhaled, tears falling as I allowed myself to submit to a stance.
I saw men executed by bullet and bow. Forget killing her—I needed her to execute me now, because everything I’d fought back with for months destroyed my entire eighteen years of growth under the Harrekson name.
“Can’t you see how addicting you are to me?” I shouted out a sob, nearly screaming for her to save me from this agony.
The cross around my neck dug into my hand as I clutched it tight.
I wanted to crack it off its welded chain and stab myself in the eyes just to escape the mere sight of her.
Maybe then, she’d be finished taking over my life, gripping my hand in her bare fingers until this soul-stirring suction finished me off.
I needed her to kill me. It might be my only escape from loving her.
. . .from loving her.
“Everything I’ve learned, everything I know, everything—I can’t possibly show you how much you mean to me.”
I exhaled and struggled to take another breath. My head spun, but my eyes never left hers as she slowly approached me.
“I can’t. I can’t fathom how to get past this, because in the end, I’m going to lose you! You are everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
Chains. I was in chains again. How did these chains hurt more than the ones that held me down as a child? Tight chains wrapped around my ankles, trapping my heart in a cage, my neck in a cinching bear trap. I was going to lose her. She’d never love me like I needed her to.
Kill me. Kill me, please. End this torture.
“You’re all I ever dream about now. You’re all in my head. Why can’t you stay there?”
She’d never forgive me for all I’d done, all I’d sinned. She’d never love me when she found out how much of a psychopath I was.
I gasped for breath as she dusted her fingers over my face. She took me into her gentle hands and looked down at me. If angels were once human, she was standing in front of me in everything but wings and a halo.
“The world in your beautiful mind is somewhere I’ve wanted to be for so long.
” Quinntessa spoke so fluidly, I would have believed she wasn’t drinking anything but water.
“I’ve thought about the possibility of you thinking of me, dreaming of me…
There’s not a moment I look at something and can’t find a way to connect it to you. ”
My shoulders slumped as she spoke. It was a small movement, yet so violent, I felt a switch in my head, staring up at her as I imagined her with my lipstick on her neck instead of the bruises my monstrous hands would make.
She’s so beautiful. In sight and sound.
What have I done? I should have pulled the trigger.
On her? On me? Did it matter?
We were suffering. What in the Romero and Juliet is this shitty feeling in my chest?
“Everything I do somehow leads back to how I feel about you, how I’m so helpless to the way you make me feel. How . . . I would never leave you.”
She was giving me everything my body needed—begged for—and I found my thoughts betraying my agenda of distancing myself.
My hands slid up her legs, feeling every wrinkle in her skinny jeans, the swell of her thighs as my chin dug into her flesh.
I gripped her wrists and gritted my teeth, fighting off the dark circle seeping through my vison.
I felt as though I was mourning my life. She was the only thing holding me up as I sank my weight and gave her all of me. Take me, fucking take me away from here.
I submitted to her. My knees drove into the floor as my father had taught me. I allowed her to have full control, waiting for her to announcement my sentencing. Quinntessa would be the one holding the gun.
I’ve stupidly refused to choose and now I would die execution style at her mercy. This was my fate. This would be my end.
Pull the trigger.
“Please,” I choked out, my nails embedding into her wrists.
I wasn’t sure if I was begging her to leave or save me from this pain. My chin spasmed as I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them a moment later with blurry vision, trying to focus on saving her from me.
“You have to go. I can’t . . . I can’t forgive myself when I hurt you,” I begged her.
“No.” Quinntessa shook her head.
She was so fucking stubborn. So goddamn stubborn. She took, and took, and took from me. Couldn’t she listen to me for once in her life? Listen to someone who actually knew what they were talking about?
“Quinntessa, you don’t understand. I am going to hurt you!”
“And you don’t understand that I don’t give a shit.” Quinntessa glared at me.
She was going to be the death of me.
Quinntessa pulled my chin up with her fingers. Her thumb caressed my cheek, down my jaw. My hands grabbed the back of her thighs, closing my eyes and letting a mix of a whimpering moan tumble out at her touch. She was a drug.
Satan has my fucking soul.
“Quinntessa.” I opened my eyes and tried to form a single word that might convince her to let me go, to leave me and never look back.
Sweet, sweet Mustang lowered down carefully to her knees. She gave me a smile, the pain in her eyes making my tears flow freely.
“Hurt me.” Quinntessa leaned closer and carefully pulled my bandanna back into place.
She brushed my hair out of my eyes and tucked little loose strands behind my ears.
“Hurt me again and again, and I’ll forever be grateful for the time I’ll get with you.
If this is how I find out what unrequited love feels like, then so be it. ”
My breath hitched as the stupidest thought filled my brain.
Fuck it. We could always die together.
I desperately clawed my way up her body, to my feet.
I grabbed at her sweater, the fabric bunched over her hips, and dragged her to stand with me.
She stumbled, gasped in surprise to my clumsy motion.
There wasn’t a second to waste, so I ignored her unsteady feet and slammed my lips against hers.
Our teeth clicked together, her hands shooting up to yank at my jacket’s collar.
I growled against her lips at how easily she took all control from me.
I was smitten into submission, and that wasn’t something I’d ever admit to someone out loud.
There was no stopping the dangerous craving I had for her, the lengths I would go to kiss her, taste her, touch her, see her smile at me one more fucking time—I needed her.
She’s mine.
My hand molded around the back of her neck, forcing her to kiss me deeper. She didn’t fight. She moaned quietly at my force, her nails toying along my jaw with curious touches, another hand sliding down the front of my shoulder, like she wished to touch me somewhere beyond my jacket.
I wanted to fuck her in this jacket, show her how much she meant to me by disrespecting my Harrekson name, my blood oath.
Quinntessa pulled back for a breath, but I chased her lips. She inhaled the second I gave her a millimeter of space, tugging my leather stars so our faces stayed close. She wouldn’t let me get far.
I licked my lip rings and dragged them across her lips, backing her up a step.
“For someone so damn smart, you sure know nothing,” I hissed, tangling my hand in her hair and using my grip on her waist to turn her.