Violence (Antihero Inferno #3) - Lily White Page 0,68
someone else’s story, Em. It helps to imagine another person in that place, to pretend you’re only watching. I promise you, it’s so much easier.”
A wracking sob rattles through me, but I find the ability to speak. “Is it over?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it go on?”
“Until our last year of law school.”
I spin to face him. And really, the only reason I’m able to is because I take him by surprise.
Our breath collides together, our mouths so damn close that we both go perfectly still.
We shouldn’t be like this.
But then rules have never mattered to us.
“All that time?”
He presses his forehead to mine and nods.
Seven years after I walked away from them. Seven years that I could have done something to help them endure it.
I’m so full of anger that I’m practically vibrating, my nails digging into my skin from clenched fists, my teeth grinding together because there’s not a goddamned thing I can do to fix this.
“Easy there, killer,” he murmurs as he brushes my hair from my face. “It’s over now, and you don’t have to fight this battle for me.”
Except, I do.
I will.
And I am.
Even if he doesn’t know it.
It’s a damn good thing everybody believes I’m weak, that they don’t know the violence this man taught me.
I shut my eyes, but the tears just keep falling. He chases every one with his lips. A hundred kisses to stop my pain, a quiet moment that breaks us both.
He can kiss me for the next fifty years, and he’d never catch every tear that falls. There’s simply too many of them. A constant, unbearable storm.
Ezra shifts his weight until my back is on the bed, and he’s almost on top of me, his hand coming up to toy with my hair, our eyes peering through the shadows to tangle and dance together.
“There’s your first piece,” he says on an exhalation of breath. “In the interest of friendship.”
I laugh softly at that.
As if we could ever just be friends.
We were never friends, not since the night we admitted our secrets.
I have loved this man to the depth of my soul ever since.
It only reminds me why this moment is so dangerous. It reminds me that we shouldn’t be laying like this. Shouldn’t be so close. Shouldn’t be touching because I’m not sure either of us are strong enough to stop.
I thought I was strong enough once.
When really, I was suffocating slowly.
Fire needs oxygen to breathe.
And Ezra has always been that for me.
“Why are you here?”
Despite the darkness, I can see the corner of his mouth curl.
“Well, it was to establish some ground rules, but-“
“You blew that all to hell already?”
He half sighs, half laughs. “Yeah.”
Another few seconds of silence. So many possibilities trapped between us.
“What are the rules?” I ask instead of dragging him to me to taste everything I’ve lost.
“We can’t be alone.”
“Like now?”
He shifts his weight, and my body buzzes to feel him against me.
“Yeah, exactly like now.”
“Okay.”
Moving his hand, he traces the line of my jaw with a fingertip. All the way down until his fingers brush over my chin and the pad of his thumb presses to my lips.
I tremble at the feel of it, this silent, secret gesture that is only mine and his.
“And we can’t touch each other.”
It takes effort to swallow.
“Like now?”
I shouldn’t have said anything. Moving my mouth only allows his thumb to slip between my lips, the pad pressing down on the top of my bottom teeth as his fingers cup my chin.
The energy I feel roll through him is toxic, yet addicting.
It’s cold, yet burning.
Chaotic, yet barely controlled.
It’s electric and exhilarating as he fights to restrain himself against what we both know he wants.
“Just like now,” Ezra answers, his words so rough they scrape between my thighs like callused fingers, crawling up my body and over my breasts. They grab my hair and tilt my head back as teeth nip at my neck.
I can’t think.
Can’t move.
Can’t do anything but suffer beneath the memories of what it feels like when Ezra loses control.
“Anything else?” I ask, my voice so breathless that it’s not even a whisper.
His hand tightens and pulls my jaw open, his stare locked on my mouth.
He always does this.
Forces me to submit to what he wants.
Teases me by controlling me while also giving me everything I need.
And although I love the way he leads this dance, I fight him all the same.
When I bite down on the tip of his thumb, a noise rattles up his throat and