Our Broken Pieces - M.E. Clayton Page 0,49
losing my mind, as well as this argument? Yes.
Yes, I was.
His face was a magnificent picture of masculine rage as he seethed, “You dare mention the men you’ve slept with to me?”
“Because you think I’d want to hear about the women you’ve slept with?” I fired back. “You gave me up!” I screamed. “You gave me to them!”
Gage’s other hand crawled up in my hair, tangling it a painful grip, before his mouth slammed down on mine. It wasn’t tender or particularly loving.
It was violence unleashed.
I cried out when his teeth sank into my bottom lip and copper flooded my mouth. I couldn’t speak for the past ten years, but the Gage I had known in high school had always been a biter. He loved leaving his mark and he had made them with his teeth often. If his hands hadn’t been bruising my flesh, his teeth had been tearing into it.
When he pulled back, his lips were painted red, and his snarl was feral. “You ever mention another man to me, and I will fucking destroy you,” he threatened. Little did he know, it was an empty threat. He already destroyed me ten years ago.
“Then don’t throw the other women you’ve fucked in my face,” I countered, not caring that it made me sound like a jealous harpy. Because I was jealous. Gage was never supposed to have known another woman, just like I was never to have known another man. We were supposed to have been each other’s one and only.
I hated that we weren’t.
“Oh, baby,” he cooed evilly. “The only woman I have ever fucked was you.”
“Gage-”
“They were warm bodies, but it was your face I saw every damn time,” he continued. “I couldn’t get my dick hard unless I imagined they were you. But because I knew they weren’t, I could only take those experiences so far. No one has ever replaced you, and I know, now, that no one ever will.”
We had just demanded denial from one another, but we were doing just the opposite. “I fucked them hoping I’d find another you,” I told him honestly. “But I still haven’t.”
His fist tightened in my hair. “Right here. Right now, Mystic. In this moment, only, will you ever have a choice with me. Make it,” he demanded.
Did that mean he believed me? Did that mean he forgave what he had believed had been my transgressions against him? More importantly, could I do this and not fall down the dark, dangerous rabbit hole that was Gage Evans? Could I walk away a second time? Would I let him walk away?
I stared into his dark blue eyes and saw everything that was wrong with him. I also saw everything that was wrong with me reflected in them.
My body screamed for him. It screamed for everything I knew he was capable of giving to me. It screamed for fucking release. It screamed for the anticipation of the man he was now versus the boy he had been. I knew what a teenage Gage could do, I had no idea what a grownup Gage could unleash.
My mind was telling me I was a fool. It was telling me sex was not the answer. It was telling me I needed to distance myself from the situation and give both me and Gage time to absorb the truth of our past finally coming out. It told me all wasn’t forgiven and there was a bigger fallout from all of this.
It told me to fucking run.
My heart, though…my heart was telling me I was exactly where I should have been all along. I was in Gage’s sadistic embrace, and there was nowhere else I should be.
Nowhere else I belonged.
Everything inside of me was at war and I didn’t know what the right choice was. I felt the answers yes and no were both equally damning.
The internal battle was real. But, at the end of it all, there was one solid truth. In ten years, I’ve yet to meet a man who’s made me feel even an ounce of what Gage Evans makes me feel. All these years without him, and my feelings for him still feel like a tornado that was never meant to be controlled.
“Mystic…”
That one word.
My name.
My name said in a way that sounded like a prayer and a curse was all I needed to make the second worse decision of my life. The first being the decision to walk through the park that day, because in the end, loving