Ouch.
Man, it totally sucked that I could hate him, see his pain and hurt for him.
Then his hand came to my neck and I had nowhere to go so I couldn’t pull away.
“Please, listen to me,” he said softly.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Get it over with so I can go to bed and let the aspirin work.”
“The what?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just say whatever you have to say.”
His jaw clenched then his thumb started stroking the side of my neck. That was when my jaw clenched and I glared at him.
“Is it normal, in this world, this… travel between worlds?” he asked.
“No,” I bit out.
“Do you know anyone it’s happened to?”
“No,” I repeated shortly.
“No one?”
“No,” I replied. “Get to the point.”
“Me either,” he said quietly, “until you.”
Oh shit. I saw his point and that sucked.
When he said no more, I prompted, “Is that all?”
“My love,” his thumb moved up to stroke my jaw as his face got even closer, “it was fantastical what you were saying. You have to agree.”
“No I don’t,” I denied.
“Put yourself in my place,” he urged.
“Yes, well, sure, for an hour, maybe a day, I’ll give you a week,” I stated sarcastically. “I can put myself in your place and maybe the Cora of your world could pull something like that off for that period of time. I’ll give you that.”
“My sweet –”
“But we had two months together. I saw the damage she wrought on your staff and the entirety of Bellebryn. I know she was idiot enough to spurn your love. I can look around my house and see what she’s capable of. But you can’t tell me that she’s capable of carrying off that kind of deception for that long. When I arrived, everything about her had changed, I hope. Everything. Even the way she slept. And you cannot tell me that you covered my body with yours, moved inside me, looked in my eyes while you f**ked me and didn’t know the bloody difference.”
Shit. Now I was using his curse words.
But it worked. I scored a hit. I saw the pain slash through his eyes.
“I wanted to believe –” he started.
“Well, you didn’t. I baked you a f**king cake because it was the only thing I had to give you on your birthday, I wanted to give you a part of me and I got to your study and heard –”
“Don’t,” he clipped tersely.
“Yes, you know what I heard,” I whispered.
His hand slid up to cup my jaw, his other hand joining it on the other side.