Page 55 of Cruel Crown

Gideon was silently staring at the chair Bas had sat on.

Everything we had up until this point had been built on lies and pillars of deceptions, and structures like that tended to come tumbling down the moment the truth came out.

“I was lonely,” I said, breaking the silence.

He was still angry, but he was listening.

“After Chicago, I started to realize the detachment I had with the world. The way I had desensitized myself to my surroundings—breaking and remaking Bastian, that took a toll on both of us. I felt nothing, and he felt everything. It poured out of him in waves.”

I reached for his hand. This type of conversation might be fucked-up to civilians, but we were living in a different world.

“I never expected to cross paths with you again. And I had felt safe enough with someone else to give myself to them in hopes of finding some comfort, something to take the pain away. It didn’t mean anything profound for either of us. We cared for each other, but that’s all there was to it. Bas, he needs to feel connected to someone. He needs that attachment because it’s the only thing that stops him from losing his mind. It’s why he has an open-room policy. But I can tell you that I have not been there for a long time, nor will I be there again.”

He held my hand in a tight grip.

“I hate that he had a piece of you. That he stills has a piece of you.”

“I thought you liked him?”

“Did he make you come?” he asked through gritted teeth and turned to look at me.

“Why ask questions you don’t want the answer to?”

Gideon glared at me. He moved so fast that he had me pinned down on the mattress in seconds.

“Everything about you is my business. I want the good but especially the bad. I want nothing between us. If I’m asking it’s because I care, because I want—no, I need to know everything. “

“I can tell you that there’s been no one but you since your safe house.”

He started to breathe slowly again. When I saw him in his safe house, that had been more than a year ago.

“I know you’re sore, but right now, I really don’t give a fuck,” he said as he kissed my neck.

“I know the type of pain that cripples your soul.” I reached for his face. “And handsome, you’d never been that cruel to me.”

He cursed at my confession, and then I kissed him.

***

“I want to say I’m sorry…” Gideon said with a smug smile.

Instead of answering him, I grabbed my bedsheet and pulled it off my bed and threw it on the ground.

As I got dressed, I didn’t let him see my discomfort. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t walk straight for a week, and he got his wish. I was glad for the cold temperatures; I looked like I had been beaten.

“It’s sexy, Petal.” He gave me a smirk and referred to the small stains of blood that adorned the bedsheet.

“You could have peed on me and made it easier,” I said as I started to walk away. I was about to get the door open when he came behind me and put out his hand to stop me.

“I think I like this short hair,” he said to himself as his lips kissed behind my neck right below where my hair ended. Tingles spread down my back, and I felt the imprint of his smile against my neck.

It felt so foreign, and like it was a dream…all the things I never thought could belong to someone like me.

“Petal, we both know you loved every second of it. Your nails dug into my shoulder blades as you moaned, sometimes with pleasure, other times with pain, but you got off on it maybe more than I did. The way you came—fuck, so fucking wet and tight. That’s why no one will ever fit me like you do. You were made for me, love.”

And because my babushka didn’t raise a weak woman, I didn’t give in.

“Whatever. We aren’t fucking for a month.” I pushed him back, ignoring the way he chuckled, and I left my room, glad he had to let time pass before he went out.

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