Our Broken Pieces - M.E. Clayton Page 0,19

shook me to the bone. People were going to know I was sleeping with Gage Evans and I wasn’t ready for that. The plan was to keep this thing a secret between us and let it die a quiet death once we graduated and he went off to college. Well, at least, that had been my plan. But now...now I had to face what we were doing. I couldn’t compartmentalize it into a dirty little secret that no one knew about. I used to have weeks in between our sex-fueled insanity to recover from his abuse and my regret, but I didn’t have that anymore.

The cover of secrecy was gone, and without that protection, people were going to see just how sick and twisted we were when the time came where we couldn’t control this...depravity between us. It was bound to happen.

“I can’t go out there,” I whispered.

Gage stopped and looked down at me. “What?”

I stared into his beautiful, sadistic blue gaze. “I can’t go out there, Gage.” The panic was real. “They’re going to know. Everyone is going to know.”

He let go of my hand and crossed his arms over his muscular, defined chest. “That you belong to me? That I just fucked the shit out of you?” He gave me a tight nod. “Yeah, they’re going to know. And they need to know. Everyone needs to fucking know it.”

I could feel my lips tremble and my body grow cold with anxiousness. “People can’t know, Gage,” I implored. “It’ll…” I started to shake my head in denial because, let’s face it, everyone already knew. “We can’t do this…”

One second Gage was peering down at me, trying to read my panic for what it was, the next he had me slammed up against the bathroom door and he looked livid.

He looked insane.

“Don’t you ever speak those words to me again, Mystic,” he snarled down at me.

What?

“Gage, you don’t-”

He gave me a small shake against the door. “Don’t ever tell me we can’t do this,” he clarified. “You don’t get to end this, Mystic. You’ll never get a say in whether this thing between us ends or not.”

My eyes widened. “Gage, if it gets out what we’re...doing, my parents will ship me off-”

The glowering in his eyes showed the levels of madness he was reaching and surpassing with each second. “No one will ever keep you from me, Mystic,” he seethed. “Including your parents.”

He was talking nonsense. He was talking in terms of forever and I knew we weren’t a forever kind of situation. We were...a sick addiction that we needed to overcome to be able to function later in life, somehow. I wasn’t looking forward to a regular relationship with a regular guy and regular sex, but this thing with Gage was never supposed to last forever, even though I wanted it to.

The tears started falling. “We’re going to be expected to behave normally, Gage. What happens the first time we can’t?”

I knew it was hopeless when he replied, “God, I love your tears, baby.” It was said so softly and lovingly, it just confirmed my fears.

“Gage-”

He leaned down and kissed me hard. When he pulled back, he looked at me and said, “You’re mine, Mystic. Every broken, confused, messed-up part of you belongs to me. I don’t care about anything else.”

I couldn’t help the surge of anger that pushed my tears back. “That’s because you’re the man,” I snapped. “You’re not going to be looked at like a victim. No one is going to intrude and insist you get help. I’m the one who’s going to be pitied. I’m the one who’s going to have to explain...explain…”

“Explain what?” he snapped back.

I pushed at his chest and he let me escape. I turned in the middle of the room to face him again. “Everyone will just chalk up your behavior to macho alpha bullshit. No one will question your high-handed ways. I’m the one who...who’s going to have to explain how...how I like it.” The last part was said on a whisper because I was ashamed that I didn’t feel ashamed. I felt exposed that I enjoyed how violently Gage took me. I hated how I took pleasure in something that was traumatizing and destructive to millions of women everywhere.

Where women and men were fighting against domestic abuse and violence against women, I was finding pleasure in it. The disgust and regret were real. They were like an albatross around my neck and Gage was the one weighing it down.

Gage