Chapter 6 #2
With that, he released me and took a step back. Without him at my back, I felt the kind of cold that seeped into your bones and made you tremble from the inside out. The gun wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be, but even still, just holding it scared the living hell out of me.
“Shoot, Charlotte,” Dalton demanded, making my already frayed nerves that much worse.
My whole body began to shake, making it impossible to see the target through the sights, and the finger I held on the trigger refused to move. My breathing grew labored, and my vision blurred as tears began forming in my eyes.
“You wanted to do this, so do it,” he snapped, rattling me to my core.
Unable to hold my arms up for another second, I let them fall, dropping the gun on the table in front of me like it burned my palms. Lowering my head, I ripped off the safety glasses and squeezed my eyes closed, causing the tears to spill over and slide down my cheeks as I struggled to pull in a full breath.
“I can’t do it,” I croaked, my voice coarse and raspy with shame. Then a second later, I lost it.
Dalton
Fuck me. I was an asshole. I’d stormed in here with every intention of scaring Charlotte straight, but as I drove through town, intent on getting to her as fast as I could, I kept thinking about what she’d done two days earlier and all the ways it could have gone horribly wrong, and I lost control.
Fear had filled me with adrenaline, making my blood heat, and when I walked into the shop and saw her standing there, I did something I hadn’t done in years, something that had been trained out of me—at least until a certain hazel-eyed girl with a beautiful pixie face had blown into my life like a whirlwind and made me forget myself.
I let my emotions get the best of me, and I took everything I was feeling out on her.
Her whole body had started shaking from the moment I put the gun into her hands, and she stood there like a scared deer, pointing it shakily at the target before her whole frame collapsed.
“I can’t do it.” Her words came out watery, and a second later, she lost her battle and began to sob. The sound of it was like a knife to the chest.
Unable to help myself, I reached for her, grabbing hold of her delicate shoulders and pulling her into me. “Shh,” I cooed, trying my best to soothe her as she burrowed her face into my chest, her tears soaking the front of my shirt. “It’s okay. You’re okay, Thumbelina.”
Her scent, something fresh and tropical like coconuts or pineapple, wafted from her hair and filled my nostrils, and it took everything I had to fight against getting hard as I held her in my arms.
“I-I hate b-being weak,” she sobbed, clutching at the material of my shirt and fisting it tight.
“You aren’t weak,” I insisted with a vehemence that made my chest rattle. “You’re the furthest thing from weak I’ve ever seen.”
She sniffled, releasing me to brush the tears from her face as she looked up at me, and while I missed the hold she’d had on me, I was thankful as hell she hadn’t pulled away.
“I’m scared all the time,” she whispered.
“I just don’t want to be scared anymore.
I-I thought . . . if I could prove to myself that I wasn’t a victim—” She trailed off, lowering her gaze to her feet and giving her head a shake.
Christ, she was gutting me. “Hey,” I said softly, placing my fingers beneath her chin and forcing her gaze to return to mine.
Just like always, every time our eyes locked, I lost a piece of myself to this incredible, infuriating woman.
“Being scared doesn’t make you weak. Everyone’s scared of something, Charlotte.
Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a sociopath. ”
She reacted as I’d been hoping, those full, pouty, pink lips of hers curving up ever so slightly into a smile at my lame joke.
And fuck me if seeing that smile—even as small as it was—didn’t make something warm bloom in my chest. Charlotte Belmont had the kind of beauty that would steal a man’s sanity and bring him to his knees, and from the moment I’d first laid eyes on her all those months ago, I’d been determined to make her mine in every way.
Problem was, I wasn’t the first man in her life to want to keep her.
There was a line that came before me, only those fuckers hadn’t cherished what they’d fought so hard to possess.
They’d left her scarred and wary. Because of them, she closed herself to everyone, keeping her secrets locked away tight.
Extending my fingers, I rested my palm against the side of her neck and dragged the tip of my thumb beneath her bottom lip. My desire to taste her was overwhelming.
Her lips parted on a sigh, and I watched as her eyes traveled down to my mouth. I watched as the pulse in her neck began to thrum wildly and her chest rose then fell on a big exhale.
“Christ, you’re so beautiful,” I murmured, losing myself in her.
“Dalton,” she whispered, and I’d have given absolutely anything to hear her say my name like that while I was buried deep between her thighs, feeling her clutch around my cock like a glove while I moved in and out of her.
I could see it in her eyes. I could feel it in the way she melted deeper against me, giving me more of her weight. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her.
She was almost there, I nearly had her. Then, as fast as a heartbeat, I saw those shutters fall back into place, and just like that, I lost her.
“I’m not good for you,” she said on a breath, her voice so small I almost missed it. Feeling the weight of defeat and frustration on my shoulders, I dropped my forehead against hers and closed my eyes, trying to gain control of myself.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered regretfully. “I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve you.”
“Stop,” I grunted. With a sigh, I lifted my head and reached up to scrub at my face. She took a step back, and the space between us suddenly felt like a chasm too wide to ever cross. “Just . . . stop.”
“I’m toxic, Dalt,” she asserted. “Anything good in my life, anyone I care about, it all gets ruined eventually, and I’d hate myself if anything happened to you because my shitty, miserable luck rubbed off on you. And that’s what’ll happen. It’s what always happens.”
I couldn’t stand that she saw herself like that. She really believed she was toxic and underserving in any way.
Closing the distance between us, I took her face in my hands and leaned in close. “One day you’re going to see yourself the way I do. You won’t be able to fight what you feel for me anymore, and when that day comes, you’ll give me all your secrets.”
I inhaled her scent one last time, letting the fresh, sunny fragrance of pineapple and coconut fill my lungs. Then I let her go and walked away.