Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Halo
“Malfunction: Human”
I came undone in her mouth. It was silent, but it took every fiber of my being not to scream.
I don’t know why I didn’t let myself moan her name.
It wasn’t the act that shook me; it was the way she looked at me while doing it.
She didn’t ask for anything in return. Eden touched me like I was worth touching.
Like she wanted to see me fall apart, and I had.
Not just in her mouth, not just in her hands, but in her eyes. I let her look at me, I let her see me.
I didn’t know how to handle that. Didn’t know how to take it without wanting to kill myself. I returned to the thought that I should’ve stopped her, but when she said, “let me,” something inside me just obeyed. She held me in her mouth like I was something sacred and, for a moment, I believed her.
That was the problem. Because the second it was over – after her lips left me and I saw her wipe the corner of her mouth with her thumb, eyes soft, cheeks flushed – something twisted in my gut. A warning flare, another scream without sound.
I stood too fast, my voice coming out like gravel. “I… I need a second.”
She nodded like she understood and it didn’t hurt but I was so sure it did. I couldn’t tell her what was wrong. The last thing I wanted to do was jump off the bed after she gave me the best head of my life and run to the bathroom.
I closed the door behind me, flicked on the light and slung the sink on with the back of my bleeding hand as I dropped to my knees before the toilet.
The bile rose fast, violent. I didn’t even have time to brace as I heaved until there was nothing left in my stomach, forehead pressed to the cool porcelain.
My fists clenched around the base as I panted through the tail end of the nausea.
The room tilted around me, cold tile biting at my knees.
It wasn’t her fault; it wasn’t about her.
It was the fucking image. The way she’d looked up at me, beautiful, willing, trusting, and all I could see behind my eyes was that girl in the alley.
The last woman I’d seen on her knees in front of me, the one I’d put down before she could scream, the one that looked so much like Eden.
I’d wound my hand into her hair and put my gun to her head while she knelt in front of me.
She was collateral, just a line on a report, but my brain didn’t care. The wires were crossed, and this blood didn’t wash off, no matter how many times I scrubbed my hands raw. I was falling apart. This wasn’t like me.
I sat back on my heels, chest tight, sweat cooling on my skin. I could still feel the way her lips had trembled against me not from fear, but from wanting to make me feel good. Me. Like I hadn’t just spent half my life erasing people like her from the world.
I looked up into the mirror: lips pale, eyes rimmed in red.
My eyes didn’t look dead anymore, they looked haunted.
Maybe that was worse. This was me infecting something good with my rot.
Just like always. I rinsed my mouth, splashed water on my face, and stayed there with palms braced on the edge of the sink, head bowed until my pulse stopped trying to tear through my throat.
When I finally stepped back into the room, the light was dim.
She was curled on the bed half-asleep but watching me with those soft, questioning eyes.
She hadn’t heard a thing, or if she had, she didn’t act like it.
She didn’t act like she knew the kind of monster that had just been puking his guts out, ten feet away.
I slipped in beside her hesitantly. She reached for me, and I let her.
I didn’t deserve it, but she did. She deserved whatever she wanted, and I needed her warmth more than I needed the truth right now.
Even if the truth was this: I hadn’t just let her get close.
This wasn’t a one-sided infatuation, I wanted her to get close, and that meant I was already losing the war.
I let her nestle into my arms, but I couldn’t bring myself to hold her. She didn’t know what she was doing, offering me things I didn’t deserve. Mercy, trust, desire, and still, I could hear her voice like a whisper behind my ribs: I want to be the place you fall into.
Christ. Who was she? She made me feel like a man again, and I couldn’t decide if that was mercy or torture. I closed my eyes and let her name settle in my mouth, unspoken.
Eden was the closest thing to grace I’d ever get.