Chapter Nineteen #3
My hands are trembling, but I don't hide them anymore. What's the point? He's seen all of me, the ugly and the broken and the desperate, and he's still here. He still wants me.
I stare at him, really stare, letting myself absorb the hollowed-out version of the man I once thought was invincible. The guilt is written into the set of his shoulders, the tension in his jaw, and the way his eyes flick away from mine whenever he thinks I might actually see him.
I don't want him to suffer. I don't want to exist in a world where he doesn't. Even now, when I should run, when I should end it before it can start again, I can't do it.
He's a disease, and I want every fucking symptom, the same way I always have. Maybe it's destined to end in disaster for us over and over again. But I'd rather have the disaster than to have none of him, than to go through the rest of my life without him in it.
I can survive breaking. I already have. We've torn each other to pieces, broken every part of us that can break, and we're still here. Still breathing. Still fighting. Still wild with hope.
But I don't know how to survive without him.
I've never been able to figure that part out, and I don't think he has, either.
I don't think we were meant to figure it out.
He's a part of me, and I'm a part of him, stamped so deeply into each other's psyches that nothing—not time, not distance, not a goddamn thing—will ever truly separate us again.
I can survive being broken. But no one can survive without half of their soul, not even me.
"I turned down a job for you," I whisper, my heart thudding like a war drum.
His head snaps up. Hope, real and sharp and beautifully alive, blooms on his face for the first time since I walked in.
"But I have conditions," I add, holding up a finger before he can say anything.
He straightens, hungry for whatever I'm about to offer. "Name them."
"You help me start my own agency," I say, meeting his gaze dead-on. "I want your resources, your contacts, your expertise. But I run it. No agreements. No contracts. I'm nobody's possession, Asher."
He nods, a wild, feral spark in his eyes. "Done."
I hold up another finger. "I never fucking crawl for you again. Not once. Not ever."
"I never deserved to see you crawl, princess," he rasps. "It was always me who was meant to be on my knees for you."
I glower at him, letting him know I'm not finished. "I mean it. Not for any reason. If I get on my knees for you, it's because I choose it. Not because you demand it."
He's dead serious now. "Understood."
I cross my arms, telling him the rest of it. "And I want a safeword."
He cocks an eyebrow, and for a second, the old arrogant Asher is back. "I make you feel unsafe?"
I shake my head, feeling my cheeks go hot. "No, but…I need to know you'll stop if I need you to."
His face softens. "You don't need a word, Brielle. I know you. I know how much you can take. I know what you need. I won't push you beyond it."
"You did once," I remind him, my voice trembling, but I don't back down.
He flinches, paling slightly at the reminder. But he needs to feel this guilt. He needs to remember what he risks if he ever fucks up again. "Pick a word," he says, his voice shaking.
I think for a second, then smile. "Devil."
He grins, the first real smile I've seen from him in months. "Devil it is, then."
The tension drains out of the room, just a bit.
He walks around the desk, stopping a foot away from me. "Any other conditions?" he asks, his voice rough.
"Just one," I say, and this is the hardest one of all.
"Promise that you won't break me again. If you ever feel like you're losing yourself again, you have to tell me.
You don't get to protect me from you or hide the things that matter.
You don't get to push me away or hurt me to punish yourself or keep secrets.
Whatever you're facing, whatever you're feeling, we face it together. "
He lifts a hand, slow and careful, and rests it on my elbow. It's a question, not a demand.
I nod, allowing him to pull me into his arms.
"I swear to you, I'll never break you again. I love you," he says, his voice breaking as he wraps himself around me, his entire body shuddering. "And I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for everything I've done, princess."
I look up at him, the man who ruined me and rebuilt me and broke me again.
"I know," I say, and for the first time, I really mean it.
He kisses me, and it's nothing like the first time, or the last time, or any time in between.
It tastes like hope. Like violence and hunger. Like a future I never let myself imagine because I thought neither of us deserved it, not after everything we'd done to each other.
His mouth is rough, desperate. My hands fist in his shirt, dragging him closer until there isn't any air between us, until every inhale is his exhale, until I could almost believe we were the same ruined creature, split in two by accident and mended back together one painstaking, devastating stitch at a time.
It's perfect in a way nothing ever has been.
When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against mine. "I love you, princess. Every fucked-up, broken, monstrous piece of me is yours."
"I know," I whisper. And I do. I think I always did.
We stay there, in the wreckage of our old selves, in each other's arms, breathing each other in. For once, it doesn't hurt at all.