I just wanted to stay here, safe in his arms like I'd wished I could so many times in the deepest depths of my heart.
"I would never make you a prisoner like that," he swore, his muscles trembling with barely contained rage as he fought to stay there with me instead of charging out of here in pursuit of fucking Shawn. "I just want you to be safe. I want you to be here. I want to look after you and provide for you and-"
"You threw me away," I choked out, pushing against him until he was forced to release me and I stood there staring up at him with tears in my eyes. "You shoved me down in the mud and told me to never come back, Fox. And I get it. I understand that none of you really wanted that and I know that Luther forced your hand. Maybe I can even forgive you for it. But it doesn't change it. It doesn't change what that set in motion. The only place that I was ever truly safe was here and then I wasn't here anymore, and I was just a fucking kid. So I did what I had to and I don't like the person it made me into, or the things it forced me to do, but somehow I found my way back here and I'm really trying to reclaim the pieces of me that once lived here. I don't want to be this jaded, broken mess of a girl anymore, Fox. But more than that, I don't want to be a man's plaything ever again. I can't be your prisoner even if the walls you'd build around me were made from love. I need to breathe. I need to make my own choices and fuck up in my own ways and I can't here. Not like this."
"You can't expect me to just stop wanting to protect you," he said desperately, taking a step forward as I stepped back. "I don't want to clip your wings, hummingbird. I just want you safe."
I nodded because I got that. But it couldn't go on like this. "Your version of safe is going to break us," I whispered, hating the way my words hit him but needing to say them anyway. "I've been waiting ten years to claim a life for myself and now you're the thing standing between me and it. I want my freedom to include you, Fox. But I can't be a prisoner anymore."
Fox opened his mouth then swiped a hand down his face before turning and striding away from me. I watched in confusion as he headed into the kitchen and pulled open a drawer. He rummaged in the back of it and returned with a set of keys for me, taking my hand and placing them in my palm alongside a heavy flick knife.
"I want you to keep this knife on you at all times. Please don't use these things to do anything insane. I only want to keep you here because I need you to be safe. But I heard you and it fucking guts me to think of you living like that with that fucking monster. You need to know your worth, hummingbird, and I promise you, you're priceless. That asshole saw it too and he wanted to cage you to keep you to himself, but I won't be that to you again. I don't want you to be here because I'm keeping the door locked. I want you to be here because it's where you belong. And I trust you to come to that decision when you're ready to give me your heart, no matter how broken it might be."
Fox leaned down and pressed a kiss against my forehead then turned and headed for the exit, ready to set out on his morning run. He tried to tickle Mutt's ears as he passed him by, but my little pup turned his ass towards him and marched in the opposite direction where he curled up on the floor right beside the fancy ass bed Fox had bought for him. Not in it. I was pretty sure that dog was gonna hold a grudge against Fox for yelling at him until the end of time.
Fox left me there and I twisted the set of keys through my fingers before sighing and leaving them down on the worktop. I inspected the knife a little more closely, frowning as I read Maverick’s name on it