Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,17
nothing to do with you being a virgin,” he answered, his voice taking on a gravelly edge.
I could feel my face flushing again and for some reason, it incited rage within me. “Fuck you and fuck your fantasies.”
He flinched at my words.
God help my mouth and my wrath. I knew I was taking it out on the wrong person, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. He was a reminder of everything I was, and everything I’d lost, and I hated remembering. I hated feeling sorry for myself and I hated realizing just how far I’d fallen. But most of all, I hated the fact that he was making it so easy to let my walls down again. To want for him. To wish for him. I didn’t want to feel those things because I was no good for him anymore, and the sooner he figured that out and left me alone, the better off he would be.
Whatever ideal he'd imagined, whatever dream he'd made up about who I was and who we might become was just a figment of his imagination. The person I used to be was long gone. She didn't exist anymore. She'd been broken apart and put back together so many times that the edges no longer lined up. Not even a semblance of her remained, and I didn't want to be that girl anymore anyway.
But I didn't really want to be this person either.
This person was cold and cruel and messed up, and that wasn’t who I wanted to be either. Dammit!
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, backpedaling out of the hole I’d thrown myself in. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I shook my head and immediately regretted it as my headache slammed back and forth inside my head.
His gaze remained fixed on me, his jaw muscles ticking profusely, as though trying to decipher a complex puzzle with missing pieces, but he still wasn’t saying anything, and it only made me feel worse about myself.
What the hell was I doing here anyway? What was I doing to him? He didn't need this crap in his life right now. He had enough problems of his own without my added drama in the mix.
Mortified of my behavior, I tried to do the thing I did best. Run.
“I need to go," I said as I searched the room for the duffel bag I’d packed right before I decided to screw everything up and throw myself to the wolf again. I needed to get as far away from here as physically possible. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. But I shouldn’t be here.”
“No. This is exactly where you should be.” His unwavering eyes all but pierced my heart with their veracity.
I shook my head again. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Trace. You don’t have all the pieces,” I said, spotting my bag by the bedroom door and rushing over to it. If he knew the whole truth, the truth about what I had done to him and how easily I’d moved on, he wouldn’t be asking me to stay. He probably wouldn’t be talking to me at all.
“Then fill in the pieces,” he challenged, shadowing me from a distance.
I wished I could. I really did, but the past was too ugly to fess up to. I wasn’t strong enough to do it and he wasn’t strong enough to hear it. Not yet anyway.
“I have to go,” I said again as I yanked open the bag and pulled out my hoodie.
“And where exactly are you going to go in the middle of the night?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched me like a sentinel manning his post.
“I don't know yet, probably a motel or something.” I threw the hoodie on, not even bothering to take off my bloody shirt first. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll figure something out.”
“Jemma—”
“I’m not your problem,” I cut in, stopping him from saying anything else. “I can take care of myself. Thank you very much for everything, but I’ve taken up enough of your time,” I said and grabbed the door handle.
Trace materialized beside me in an instant, his hand over mine, stilling it as I tried to pull open the door. My aching, humiliated body immediately caught fire as the rushing current between us all but electrified me where I stood.
Exactly what I didn’t need.
Sucking in a breath, I looked up and met his eyes—those mesmerizing azure eyes that were once again