Page 56 of Commit

“What can I do?” I offer, surprising us both.

“Love him,” she whispers so softly I almost miss it. She strokes her fingers gently through his hair before she leans down and kisses his forehead.

I’d give her anything, but I can’t give her that. I’m not sure I’m capable of loving anyone. I’m too fucking selfish. And if she runs her fingers through his hair one more fucking time, I’ll shave it off while he sleeps.

She eases out from underneath him and lowers his head to the pillow. She waits to make sure he’s settled, and I watch her watching him, barely holding back the urge to finish what some motherfucker started.

She climbs off the bed and straightens the T-shirt she’s wearing over an old pair of shorts that must have been from years ago because there’s nowhere else they’d be considered decent other than in the bedroom. She heads toward the door, expecting me to move, but she should know me better than that by now.

In the end, she has no choice but to brush past me, her chest grazing my arm. She keeps her head down and walks away from me as quickly as she can, which doesn’t bother me because I can watch her ass in those tiny shorts.

Closing the door, I follow her down to the kitchen, where she’s reaching into the cupboard above her head for a glass.

I stand behind her and pin her to the counter so she can feel how hard I am. “I don’t want you sharing a bed with him anymore.”

She slams the glass down on the counter and spins around, defiance blazing in her eyes. “How nice for you. Do you even give a single fuck about what I want?”

I dip my head and skim my nose across her jaw. “Your attitude is turning me on, Birdie. It makes me want to fuck it right out of you.”

“Me having a pulse is enough to turn you on. You need fucking help,” she spits.

I slide my hand into her hair and yank her head back, exposing her throat and forcing her to submit to me. “You’re my therapy.”

She snarls as I nip at her skin, but her anger is making her blind to what I’m about to do.

“I’m not qualified to deal with your kind of crazy. Pick someone else.”

“I don’t want anyone else, Birdie. I only want you.” I lick over her pulse point, making her shudder. “You’re mine.”

“Lucky fucking me,” she scoffs.

“Oh the things we could do with your dirty mouth and my dirty mind.”

“That’s just it, though, Hudson. It’s my mouth, my body, and my heart you’re playing with. Mine. Not yours. I belong to no one.”

“I asked you nicely. I guess a statement is in order.”

“What?”

Before she can say anything else, I suck the skin of her neck, nibbling and sucking again harder. It takes a few seconds for her to realize what I’m doing. When she does, she tries to push me away, but I grab her wrists, holding them between us, and keep going while she begs me to stop.

Once I’m done, I pull back and see the unmistakable mark on her neck. My mark of ownership. I grin, feeling proud of myself, but that slips when I see the look in her eyes.

She doesn’t bother hiding her tears from me. She lets them fall freely as I let go of her. She lifts a shaky hand to her neck and lets her eyes slip closed in defeat.

“I hate you,” she whispers.

“You won’t hate me forever.”

She opens her eyes and stares into mine, unflinching. “Challenge accepted.”

I press against her so she can feel how hard I still am. It’s an unspoken warning that I can see she’s battling with herself to listen to.

“You don’t care about me. You don’t care about your son. I’m not sure why you took us in.” She shakes her head, a broken laugh slipping free. “You’re blackmailing me into sleeping with you. And I’m doing it for Abbot because I refuse to have him let down by another parent.

“But eventually, he’ll see what you did to me. Oh, it’ll be too late for me and him by then. I know he’ll lash out and hurt me in the worst possible way. That’s the thing about loving someone—you give them a piece of your heart. And I gave him whatever pieces I had left, and when this comes out, he’ll turn them into dust. But that’s not what scares me. It’s what happens after that. When he takes a step back and remembers who I am and what I’ve done for him. He’ll connect the dots, and then he’ll be gone, too. He’ll hate you, but not half as much as he’ll hate himself.

“The boy I love will suffer because of you. So yeah, I’ll have no problem hating you until my last breath.”

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