Page 88 of Burn With Me

“Home. Thought you didn’t let women stay the night?” I’m angry. Angry that he gave me exactly what I asked for. That he got me off exactly how I always imagined I’d like it best—only I didn’t.

It was too rough.

My shoulder hurts where he bit me, and the skin on my ass stings with every move I make.

“Ginny—”

“We’re done, Jackson.”

Walking out of his bedroom, I hurry down the stairs as he yells out behind me. “Ginny, wait! We’re not fucking done!”

Looking over my shoulder, I see him stepping into his joggers before coming down the stairs after me. My heart seizes in my chest before jumping into my throat. “Yeah. We are. There’s nothing left to say. I can’t trust you.”

And now, every time I look at you,thiswill be all I remember.

Everything in me just wants to turn and break down in his arms. To try to fix what we’ve broken. What we’ve ruined before it even had a chance to start.

But my head is more stubborn than my heart and tells me to keep my chin high as I grab my purse and slip into my flats.

“That’s it then? You’re just going to believe the tabloids and fuck everything we’ve been working toward?” he shouts behind me, voice desperate.

The elevator doors ping and open. Stepping into them, I turn and shrug. “You already fuck everything else, so why not this, too?”

It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever said to anyone.

Jackson’s face hardens as if I’ve physically hit him again. And as the doors start to close, I swear it looks like his eyes are glazing over with unshed tears. It’s almost enough to throw my hand out and catch the door.

“Ginny, don’t do thi?—”

They shut, cutting him off. Interrupting his hoarse plea as he begs me not to leave.

My eyes sting, but I will myself not to cry again. I’m done crying. I’m done playing by the rules of these men who think they can just do whatever they want with no consequences.

I’m justdone.

Jackson

By the time I make it down to street level, Ginny’s gone.

My chest heaves with every breath, lungs burning from the unexpected cardio of running down the fire escape stairs, attempting to intercept her before she leaves the building. But even in my best shape, there’s no way I would have been able to catch up to her.

It’s raining when I push the doors to my building open and run out into the street, looking both ways for any flash of red hair or a wayward cab that might be taking her away from me.

There was never another way for tonight to end except badly. I knew it from the moment she messaged me asking to talk.

Crouching down, I grip my hair between my fingers and let out a string of curses into the dusky gray sky of the early morning.

Ginny deserved better than that—even if she wanted it—she had no idea what she was asking or getting herself into.

And me?

Fuck me for getting lost in the moment. For marking her the way I did. When it was all over and done, I saw—reallysaw—what I’d done to her…what I’ve done to multiple women before her, and never once has it bothered me the way it did tonight.

The angry red imprints of my teeth on her skin, the broken blood vessels, and the bruises that had already started to form where I gripped her skin so tightly.

Bile rises to my throat, and I empty the contents of my stomach into the street, watching as the rain washes it away into the gutter while Ginny’s words replay in my mind.

“It’s over.”

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