Page 57 of Fracture

“I wanted to come down here and remind you who you belong to.” I grasp her jaw in my hand, forcing her to look up at me. “I wanted to remind you that you’re better than all these fucking posers. Even if they think you’re slumming it with someone like me.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?” She asks, her body softening against me.

“That’s right.” I smile down at her.

“So I belong to you?”

“If you do,guera, you come home to me and you prove it.”

Her eyes flutter, and she sighs softly. “Dylan, I have to tell you someth-”

I cut her off with a hard kiss. I have to tell her something too, too many fucking somethings. But I’m not going to give her a chance to doubt this. I’m not going to give myself a chance to feel guilt over the morning I just spent in bed with her brother. I know this is fucked, I know I’m trying to reel her in harder so shewon’t walk away when she finds out just what I’ve been doing behind her back.

I refuse to lose her. My girl.Our girl.

When I release her, my hand drops to her throat, and I squeeze lightly. “You come home to me, and you show me who you belong to.” I squeeze a little harder, and a small moan leaves her lips. “I told you, I’m a fucking animal for you. And I need you. All of you.” I put my mouth to her jaw, nipping her gently. “Now, you go back to that family of yours, and know you’re better than all of them.”

A shuddering breath leaves her lips, and she nods.

I release her, stepping back and feeling way too fucking smug over the fact that her hair’s come loose and her lips are full and red from kissing me. Knowing she’s going back to her family all worked up and thinking about what’s going to happen when she comes home later.

I head back through the gardens to the car, where Levi is leaning on the hood, smoking a cigarette.

“And?” He asks, grinding the cigarette out under his shoe. “Did we get our girl?”

“I think we’re about to find out.”

I spend the next few hours back at the house in the garage, working on my bike. Levi leaves for a while, then comes back and disappears into his room. The sun starts to sink low on the horizon, and Stella still isn’t back.

I go inside, heading up to the shower to wash off all the grease from the garage. I wonder when Stella’s coming back, if my little possessive display scared her off. I’m not much good at this ‘taking it slow’ thing anymore. The guilt is eating away at me, making me desperate and reckless.

But I need to have her. I need to tell myself that I won’t fucking lose her when she finally knows who I really am.

The setting sun hasn’t made the temperature drop, and it’s hot as fucking Hades when I get out of the shower. I dry off and pull on a pair of shorts, and just as I head downstairs, the front door flies open. Frantic footsteps sound in the hallway and then thump up the stairs.

Stella stares up at me for just a moment before she rushes the rest of the way up the stairs and into my arms. She makes as though she wants to kiss me, pulling back with a brief shake of her head.

“I need you to know that I love you.”

When I try to speak, to tell her that I love her too, she claps a hand over my mouth, shaking her head more emphatically.

“I need you to listen. I’m broken, Dylan. I want things I shouldn’t. And it’s not that you’re not enough. It’s that I’m not enough. I will never be good enough for you, and I’m sorry.”

I wrap my fingers around her wrist, removing her hand from my mouth. I turn her hand, placing a kiss on the back of it.

“Guera, whatever it is, we’ll get through it.”

“I’ll hurt you.” Her lip trembles, her big amber eyes filling with tears. “I’ll hurt you, and you don’t deserve it.”

“You won’t hurt me.”

“Yes, I will.”

I’m standing on the step above her, so I’m practically towering over her, and when I sink my hands into her hair to yank her head back, her chin rests against my chest, wide eyes gazing up at me as a tear strays down the side of her face.

“Then hurt me, Stella. Fucking destroy me.” I brush the tear away with the backs of my fingers, only to have it followed swiftly by another one. “I mean it. Tear me to pieces every single day. I don’t give a fuck, as long as I’m with you.”

“But-”

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