Chapter 32 – Ariane – The Breaking Point #2
He studies my face like he’s deciding what part to demolish first. Then he says, with infuriating calm, “If I say I didn’t, you’ll call me a liar.
If I say I did, you’ll make it a confession worth hating me for.
” His thumb is back at my mouth, dragging slowly along my lower lip.
I hate the sound I almost make. “Either way, you still want me. That’s the part scaring you. ”
“I can hold two things in my head at once, I’m not a simpleton,” I snap, because I am tired of being simple even if it’s easier. “I can want you and think you’re a manipulative bastard. I can miss you and hate what you do to my life.”
His eyes flare, hunger and relief and something warm I won’t name. “Good. That means you’re finally honest with me.”
I could slap him. I could kiss him. I could let him fuck these feelings out of me. Those solutions keep shaking hands behind my eyes.
“You know what I think?” I say, because I don’t trust my hands.
“I think you left because you were afraid of what you’d do if you stayed.
I think you came back because you couldn’t stand the idea of me sleeping down the hall like a temptation you’d obey in your sleep.
And I think you want to feel me say yes while you whisper a no that sounds like an apology. ”
He bares his teeth briefly, not a smile.
“You think too much when you’re tired,” he says.
“You think too little when I touch you.” He bends, barely, and the world tilts toward his mouth.
“Which is why you’re here. Because you know exactly what happens when I let you ask the question you really came to ask. ”
“What question is that?”
“Where were you?” he says. “Who with? Who did you see? What did you find?” He tips his head as if listening for footsteps outside that aren’t there. “You’ve wondered all week, and here you are with a file you don’t want to believe and a body that already decided.”
“Stop,” I say, even as I don’t step away. “Don’t do that thing where you narrate my insides better than I can. I hate it.”
“Then tell me to stop and mean it.” He waits, close enough that I could bite if I wanted to turn this into blood.
I don’t tell him to stop. My pride writes the script and then rips it up.
He lets the silence sit between us, then takes my phone off the desk and sets it on the dresser, face down, like we’re putting a child to bed. When he returns to me, his hands bracket my hips with a care that undoes me more than any cruelty. I feel like an instrument and he knows all the strings.
“Finn,” I say, because saying his name feels like pulling a ripcord. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Bring it to me,” he says, and it’s infuriating how simply he solves things he broke. “Every question. Every doubt. Bring them to me. I’ll handle it.”
“I don’t want to be handled.”
“Liar,” he murmurs, and presses his mouth to my temple. “You want to be handled. By me.”
I close my eyes and wish I were stronger. Then I open them because wishing is for Sunday school. “Why would you do something like that?”
“Hm, I haven’t admitted to anything…”
“Well… if I find out you have, then…”
“You’ll what?” he asks, curious, almost gentle. “Leave me? Hate me? Stay and hate me? Choose one.”
“I’ll still choose you,” I say before I can stop it, and then I slap my hand over my mouth because apparently my mouth is done consulting management.
His expression breaks and reforms into a darker and softer smile. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t grin. He looks like a man who’s been thirsting in a desert and someone just pointed at a well. “Good girl,” he says so quietly I almost miss it.
I should kick him in the shin for that. Instead, I press my forehead to his chest and pretend I didn’t hear the way those words light up my spine.
“You’re an awful person,” I mumble.
“I’m yours,” he says. “Does that make it worse or better?”
“Don’t say things like that,” I whisper, because they go into the part of me that keeps souvenirs and won’t leave.
He laughs once, no humor, just heat. “Then, don’t look at me like that.” His hand slides to the small of my back. I arch like a traitor. “Ariane.”
“What?”
“Stop fighting the obvious.”
“Which is?”
He leans in, just enough. “You came here to let me take the rest of your excuses.”
“I came to ask you a yes-or-no question,” I say, even as my fingers curl in his shirt like I’m anchoring myself to a cliff I fully intend to jump from.
“Ask me again.” He lowers his forehead to mine. “This time, ask what you mean.”
I swallow. “Did you…” The word sticks, so I try again. “Did you do it just to make me yours?”
“Yes.” He answers, “And I’d do it again if it meant making you mine. You were mine the moment our lips collided. You’re the one who needed the out. You are already mine, you know that, don’t you?”
I open my mouth, hesitate, then replies, “No.”
His eyes flare, but not with surprise. With recognition. Like he’s been waiting for that lie to show up so he can dismantle it.
“No?” he repeats softly. “Then why are you here, Ariane?”
I try to step back. He doesn’t stop me, just lets his hands fall away, palms open at his sides like he’s giving me the option to bolt. That’s somehow worse. The distance between us is a breath, a heartbeat, a choice.
“Because you crossed a line I can’t uncross,” I say. My voice is too thin for how loud everything feels inside me. “Because you ruined everything.”
His jaw works. “Say it properly.”
“You ruined everything,” I repeat, louder. It echoes off the walls, off his chest, off the part of me that isn’t as outraged as it should be. “You burned my life down.”
“And you came to the arsonist,” he says. “Not the man who gave you rings and calendars. You came here.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m yours,” I snap.
He nods once, slow. “Then leave.”
The words slice the air open. I blink at him. “What?”
“Door’s right there.” He tips his chin toward it, still maddeningly calm. “Walk out. Go back to him. To whatever’s left. Tell yourself you’re not mine and you never were. I won’t chase you.” His throat flexes. “But if you stay, we stop lying about the way this feels. All of it.”
My heart stutters hard enough I feel it in my fingertips. The idea of turning away, of putting my hand on the doorknob and pretending the last weeks never happened, feels like trying to shove myself back into a life that doesn’t fit anymore.
“I hate when you do this,” I say. “When you turn everything into a dare.”
“Because you never walk away from dares,” he says, deadly quiet.
The bastard is right.
I should go. I should. Instead, my feet stay exactly where they are. My pulse gallops. My excuses shrivel one by one, loud and useless. This is almost humiliating.
“I’m not yours,” I say again, but it comes out softer this time, like even the word knows it’s out of merit badges.
He lets out a breath that sounds like it hurts. “Come here then,” he says. “Just for tonight. And we both stop pretending we don’t know what we’re doing.”
One second I’m frozen; the next my hand is in his shirt again, clutching, and I’m stepping back into his heat like I never left. His breath hitches when my body fits to his, like he didn’t believe I’d actually do it.
“This is a mistake,” I whisper
“Probably,” he says, and there’s a rough edge in his voice that wasn’t there before. His fingers skim up my spine, slow, testing. “Are you going to stop?”
Instead of answering, I tilt my head up. His mouth is right there, close enough that I can feel the words he isn’t saying fan across my lips. My eyes flick to his, and whatever he sees in mine seems to be all the permission he needs.
\ His hand cups my jaw, thumb pressing into the hinge like he’s trying to hold me together.
Heat rushes my veins, dizzy and furious and relieved.
My back hits the wall. I don’t remember us moving.
His body cages mine without pinning, giving me the illusion of space where there is none.
The world shrinks to the drag of his mouth, the scrape of his teeth when I tug his lower lip, the sound he makes when I do it again just to hear it.
“Obvious enough for you yet?” he mutters against my mouth.
“Shut up,” I breathe, pulling him closer.
When his fingers slide under the hem of my shirt, the shock of skin-on-skin makes my knees threaten mutiny. I cling harder, anchoring myself to the one person I should absolutely not be using as shore. I kiss him like I’m trying to forget everything and remember everything at the same time.
“Last chance,” he says against my throat, voice shredded. “Say stop, and I stop.”
“Don’t you dare.”
He takes that as permission and throws me on the bed, climbing on top of me.