Page 127 of Devil May Lie

He was begging to be bitten again. To be hurt.

To climax.

“What am I most angry about?” he reiterated. “My boyfriend lying to me? My boyfriend abandoning me while I was sick in the hospital—”

“I didn’t! You—”

Madden growled warningly in his ear.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” Berga altered course and said.

“You were wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”

“As if that wasn’t bad enough, the next time I see him, my boyfriend is wielding a gun trying to get me to murder him. You’ve lost people, Berga. How did that feel? You remember?”

“Awful.” Something seemed to shift and click into place for him. Madden could sense it in the way he tensed. “Dying was the only way.”

“The only way for what?” Madden asked, and this time he really wanted to know the answer, because he was stumped.

His plan had been to wear the other man down, figuring that eventually, Berga wouldn’t be able to take it any longer and would show up on his doorstep. When it’d taken too long, he’d gotten Zane to invite him to Vail, where the Butcher’s reaction to his presence had only bolstered his idea that this would work.

The only backup he’d come up with was going to him first if he didn’t come around within another week or so. Never in a million years did he imagine the Butcher just…giving up.

“I couldn’t live without you,” Berga said, his words causing Madden to fumble and still.

“What?”

“I’d rather die,” he turned his head on the floor so he could meet his gaze over his shoulder, face covered in tear tracks, “than live in a world where you were disgusted by me.”

“Baby.” He shook his head, heart cracking and splintering in his chest. Just like that, all of the revenge he had wanted vanished in a puff of smoke. Madden slipped out of him and picked him up off the ground, turning Berga in his arms.

He settled with his back against the end of the bed and lowered the Butcher onto his lap, cock impaling him. Madden kept his hands on Berga’s hips, holding him down, keeping him stuck, skin to skin.

“I have never once been disgusted by you,” he promised, holding Berga’s watery gaze. “Never.”

“That’s not true. The way you looked at me before the explosion—”

“I wasn’t disgusted,” he insisted. “I was hurt and angry, yes, and I said some things in the heat of the moment I now regret, but whatever you say, you misinterpreted it. It wasn’t disgust.”

Berga looked like he wanted to believe him, but wasn’t fully convinced. “Why did you pretend to forget me then?”

“I was being petty.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. In my defense, I thought you’d rage and insist we find a way to get my memories back. But you left, and then you never returned for me. The longer you stayed away, the more annoyed with you I became. I was determined to make you come to me first. Why didn’t you?”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “I thought letting you live the way you had before was what was best for you.”

“You were wrong.”

“Was I?”

“Absolutely.” Madden eased his hold on his waist and rested his head back against the bed. “Kiss me.”

Berga leaned in slowly, still unsure, but when Madden didn’t push him away, he seemed to tap into that confidence he was known for. His lips pressed against Madden’s, tongue darting out to urge him to part, and as soon as he did, he flicked into Madden’s mouth with no further hesitation.

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