16 #2
“You want to talk about trust? Fuck, trusting you terrified me. Wanting you terrified me. Letting you touch me in ways I told myself nobody got to touch me again terrified me. And now you want to make sure I regret that every second of the day because you hurt, so I have to hurt with you.”
“You trusted me?” His face twisted, his voice snapping clean through the room. He stepped back and flung his arms wide in furious, mocking disbelief. “Really? That’s how you repay trust?” He barked out a laugh that held no humor, only poison. “You are a shittier person than I thought.”
The sentence cracked something bright and violent inside me.
“Oh, fuck you, East.”
“Fuck you, Clarke.”
“You think I don’t know I hurt you?”
“I think you know and still chose yourself.”
“I was trying to survive.”
“I deserved better, dammit.”
That did it.
I snapped so hard there was no sound for the first second, only pressure, heat, and every unsaid thing inside my body rushing toward my mouth like a storm breaking glass.
My arm shot out, sweeping the remaining items from the counter—a dish towel, a pen, a packet of sugar.
They clattered to the floor and joined the shattered glass.
“I know, you mouthy prick,” I screamed, the sound raw and shredded, my face contorted as tears of pure fury blurred my vision. “I know!”
Easton stopped.
I stopped too, chest heaving, the world tilting on its axis.
The room didn’t.
Every sound became too loud. Every inch of him felt too close. Each breath scraped in and out of my chest like I had swallowed fire.
Easton’s chest rose and fell, fast and ragged. Mine matched it, a furious mirror. His bandaged hand flexed at his side, the white gauze already stained pink across the knuckles from how tightly he kept clenching his fist. His eyes dropped to my mouth and stayed there.
I saw the exact second the rage bled out—not into calm, but into something hotter, darker, and more desperate. I saw the exact second he stopped pretending rage was the only thing moving through him.
I moved at the same time he did.
There was no sweet pause, no careful approach, no soft question dressed up as restraint.
His good hand shot to the side of my neck as my fingers twisted into the front of his shirt, and our mouths crashed together hard enough to slam my back against the counter.
Pain flashed through my hip, hot and quick, but I barely felt it beneath the vicious, glorious relief of his mouth against mine.
Easton kissed me like he was still angry enough to break something and had decided my mouth was the safest place to put the damage.
His hand curved behind my neck, firm and unforgiving, angling me exactly how he wanted while I dragged him closer by his shirt and bit his bottom lip because I needed him to hurt too.
He made a rough, animal sound against my mouth, part fury and part warning, and it went straight through me, liquid and electric.
I shoved against his chest again, but this time it wasn’t to get him away.
He understood instantly, the bastard.
His arm hooked around my waist, and he lifted me onto the counter in one hard, graceless movement, sending a bowl clattering into the sink. His ribs protested, pulling a hiss from him, but he didn’t stop. He stepped between my knees before I could decide whether to curse him or drag him closer.
I chose both, my nails scraping up the front of his shirt while his mouth moved over mine, hot and brutal, giving me nothing gentle enough to ruin.
I tore away to breathe, gasping, and glared at him with my hands still fisted in his clothes. “I still hate you.”
His eyes were wild, the pale gray nearly black at the center, his mouth wet from mine and cruel enough to make my entire body clench. “No, you don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I feel.”
“Then stop lying with my tongue in your mouth.”
I slapped his shoulder, one hard, open-handed strike, and he caught my wrist, pinning it against the cabinet beside my head with a thud as he leaned closer.
His bandaged hand braced at my waist, the heel of his palm pressing into me while his torn knuckles remained curled away.
The pressure dragged a sharp, wanting gasp from me before I could swallow it.
He heard it.
He felt it.
The corner of his mouth moved in a twitch of pure, hateful satisfaction, like he despised how much he enjoyed knowing exactly where my body betrayed me.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, and the words weren’t soft. They were a dare with teeth, his breath hot and ragged against my lips. “Say it like you mean it, and I’ll stop.”
I pulled against his grip, but he held me there, immovable, breathing hard and waiting, every inch of his body wired tight and vibrating with the same furious need tearing me apart.
I lifted my chin until my mouth almost brushed his. “If I wanted you to stop, Easton, you would already know.”
His control snapped.
I saw it shatter in his eyes.
He hauled me off the counter, his breath catching when the turn pulled at his ribs, then backed me across the tiny kitchen with his body pressed against mine, one hand at my neck and the other at my waist. Every step was a clumsy, desperate fight neither of us tried to win cleanly.
My shoulder struck the wall near the hallway hard enough to knock a picture frame crooked with a sickening crack of glass. Easton followed me in, pinning me there with his hips and the furious, devastating weight of his stare.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he growled, his voice rough and ravaged, his forehead pressing against mine.
I grabbed the front of his shirt, twisting the fabric inside my fists, and pulled him closer until there was no space left for anything but this. “Then shut up and show me.”
His mouth slammed back onto mine, and this time there was no pretending the kiss was anything except war, with both of us choosing the same battlefield, the same glorious, vicious ruin