All The Truths - Rina Kent Page 0,77

that needs to hurt and maim, the side that was once unleashed on me.

But he stopped himself; he always stopped himself when it came to me. A part of him might have wanted to kill me because of the grudge Arianna left between us, but the other part couldn’t stop wanting to be close to me.

“Reina or Rai or whoever you want to be.” His hold on my hand tightens as he straightens and lowers his voice. “I fucked up. I know I did and it was bad. I can lie to you and say I never wanted to hurt you, but that would be a lie and I promised myself I’d never lie to you again. So here’s the uncensored version, prom queen. I wanted to hurt you. I thought if I hurt you, if I erased you from this world, then it would stop the fucking urge that’s been gripping me for three years. But the closer I got to my goal, the emptier it felt. It was even more fucking pathetic than in high school when I was beating people up for talking to you. When I watched you hanging from the roof that day, I wanted to keep you, and since then, with everything I did, you stood back up, and that made me want to have you more.

“That’s what I want to do with you all the time, Reina. I want to dominate you, hurt you, but only so I can hear you scream in pleasure. I want to keep you, to have you, to play games with you, not against you. If you want nothing to do with me, it’d be the smarter choice. No one would blame you.”

I stare at him after he finishes talking. His words hit a deep place inside me that’s been yearning for something like that, for something true and raw from him.

He’s still a psycho in some ways and I can’t completely forgive what he did to me, how he tormented me, but I can see why he was compelled to do it. I can also see how he stopped every time.

I can also see the boy I used to sit with because his presence tuned down the chaos from the outside world. He made it safe and pleasant and then I had to screw him over and act cold because I was scared of him, of what he was offering, of what I’ve been feeling.

Yes, I could make him grovel for what he did, I could delay this and hold on and make him fall to his knees. But when Ivan was beating me up, I had an epiphany: life is too short to delay things. You never know what will happen tomorrow, so the present is all you get to make a difference.

Besides, he can grovel while he’s glued to my side.

“Just so you know,” he says when I remain silent, “if you do want to stay away, I can’t promise I will. I’ll keep trying until you’ll have me again.”

“What if I don’t?” I keep my voice nonchalant.

“I’ll keep trying until you take me.”

“I love you, Ash. I always have.” The words slip out of me so easily, it’s baffling that I never said them out loud before.

He pauses, his breathing turning harsh, almost animalistic. “Always?”

“Always.”

“Even when you were cold and standoffish?”

I laugh. “Especially when I was cold and standoffish. It was a façade, Ash. The deeper my feelings ran for you, the harder I tried to kill them.”

He’s quiet for a second as if mulling my words over. When he speaks, my heart stops beating. “I love you, too, Reina. You’re my first and last.”

“You’re my first and last too.” I retrieve the ring Reina gave me. “Now, give me a decent proposal, because I don’t remember the last one.”

Five years later

“Ash…Ash…”

“What is it, prom queen?” He slows down, his hips rolling in an unhurried rhythm as he pins my throat to the ground.

He’s fucking me from the side at the entrance. The moment I walked into our apartment, he grabbed me by the throat and wrapped his other hand around my eyes, making the world black and more…thrilling.

Then he threw me to the ground, tore my clothes off like a caveman, and made me lie on my side so he could fuck me deep and fast.

It’s a game we sometimes play, the unknown. It always makes me so wanton and I come harder than ever before.

Asher’s intense side is my heaven. With each