Page 66 of Hate Me

“You were the one who brought him up.”

“I don’t want to hear it spilling from your lips.”

“Why is that? Does it get your imagination going, thinking about me moaning his name, maybe screaming it, as we fucked like a couple of goddamn animals?”

A snarl sounded and then Cas was in his space, looming over Caleb in the armchair and caging him in. “I don’t care about the fucking.”

Cas was right up in his face, his rage barely checked. It was more pain than rage, but he was clearly still processing that, unable—or unwilling at current—to recognize its true nature.

Caleb glared back at him steadily. He was the only one who could take Caspian King’s fury like that.

“The hell you don’t,” he told him.

His reaction, no worry there, had Cas flinching, his rage tapering off a little. Probably a lot of it was the shock of having that again in Cal after it being taken from him for two years.

“We both know your cock is a whore. Not to mention, your ass too. What bothers me is you connecting with him, wanting him for much more than sexual gratification.”

“You weren’t there!”

Cas frowned, pulling back a little. “What?”

“You weren’t there with me! I had no one! I was alone in the dark for a fuck of a long time, and then he came along, all right? But he’s not your replacement, nobody ever could be. Nobody! And that’s the fucking problem! I thought I could break the hold you, Bastian, and Skylar had on me with distance and time, that I could spare you my depravities, how toxic things had become with you having to meet me on my level when you’d grown to detest it. But I couldn’t! I couldn’t shake you all. It always came back to you! And now I’m back here, it’s more consuming than ever before! Fuck!”

Cas pushed off the chair and staggered back.

Long moments of intense silence elapsed between them.

And then Caleb shifted on the chair and muttered, “Happy now?”

Cas pinched the bridge of his nose. “You made yourself vulnerable by drinking like that at Haywire. If I hadn’t shown up—”

“He’d already agreed to stop.”

“Excuse me?”

“Damien had already agreed to shut it down just before you barged on in there.”

“So, he had a change of heart? So fucking what? He still plied you with liquor, brought you back to his place, settled you into a false sense of security, then stripped you naked and had his hands and God knows what else all over you.”

What. The. Fuck?

“Stop it.”

“It was sexual assault, Caleb.”

“No!” he yelled fiercely, pain breaking through. “Just leave it be. I had it handled. He was just lonely and he needed a connection.”

“Jesus Christ. That’s some impressive spin.”

“It’s the truth. Don’t retaliate, all right? It’ll just make everything worse—for all of us. Especially Bastian.”

“If you think that fucker is safe from me, you—”

“It’s a favor.”

“What?”

“Consider it me asking you for a favor.”

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