Page 20 of Love's Ace

That he was just a broken boy who’d grown into a man, and he didn’twantto be a monster?

That had obviously been a mistake.

“Fuck you then, Wren. God—cupids, humans, angels, demons, whatever the fuck it is—you’re all assholes, aren’t you?”

My hand dropped, and I squeezed the wound on my leg. It was already starting to heal, but my fingers clenching around it still made him wince as a streak of pain tore up my thigh. “I’m not the one who started this, Theo.”

“I—” His eyes narrowed, and he whirled without saying anything else. He couldn’t storm out, since I was standing in his way, but he could turn and slam the bathroom door behind him.

It was childish, but it was better than nothing. I stalked to the adjoining room I’d booked, which wouldn’t provide much privacy, but that was kind of the point. There was no way I was leaving him alone, but I wasn’t sleeping in the same space as him either—I couldn’t let him wake up in the middle of the night and sneak out to kill someone.

I had to watch him and somehow preserve my sanity at the same time. After what had just happened, I was beginning to think it was a bigger ask than I’d initially realized.

Just the knowledge that he was in the bathroom, probably thinking of ways to kill me, left something in my chest unsettled. The fact that I couldfeelhis unease through the thread connecting us—that if he wanted to, he could wrap his fingers around the string and yank it from his chest and I would be the one who suffered—was enough to leave me anxious. He could kill me, and I wouldn’t be able to defend against it unless I kept him chained to the bed at all times.

I should have kept him chained to the bed.

My mind flashed again to the expression he’d had in the diner before the anger had taken over. It wasn’t like keeping him restrained had done me much good the first time, had it? And I’dseen it then too. The panic, the fear of being caught and bound. It was almost too painful to picture.

At my back, my wings gave a warning shudder just beneath my skin a second before sensation tore through me. It spilled from somewhere deep in my stomach, aching along my nerve endings.

It burned and made me bow over… and it took me a second to realize what was going on.

I’d grabbed my leg and squeezed the wound to show Theo how he’d hurt me.

And now…

Now Theo was in the bathroom, and he was touching himself in some kind of fucked up revenge.

Chapter 8

Theo

Ididn’t think aboutit when I first went into the bathroom. I just knew that my body was tense, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Usually, when I felt like this, I’d go out on the streets and pick a fight. It was a good way to alleviate the stress—the only way I let myself be touched was when it was controlled pain. It was better that way, and it reminded me why contact wasn’t something I could everwant.

And if that didn’t work…

Well, at the end of the day, the only person I truly trusted to touch me was myself.

I just hadn’t realized that pain wasn’t the only thing that would transfer along the little red line connected between us until I’d already started.

Maybe some part of mehadrealized. Or maybe the swirl of desire ripping through me was coming fromhim. I was angry; I wasn’t turned on. But as soon as I stripped out of my clothes and stepped into the shower, my entire body nearly went limp as the mixture of fear and fury and adrenaline began to fade away. The hot water sluicing along my back and shoulders tried to sootheaway the phantom sting of the wound I’d left on Wren’s leg, and my fingers trailed along the skin experimentally. There was no mark, but I could still feel where I’d hurt him.

I wondered… Could he feel me touching it, running my fingers across it in an attempt to alleviate the pain in some silent apology for something I wasn’t even sorry about?

Could he feel everything I did?

When my shoulders hit the tiled wall of the shower, cold in contrast to the hot water, a small sound tore from my throat.

There was something about the thought that he could… It sent a line of heat through my body that had nothing to do with the shower temperature. I wasn’t sure if it was knowing he couldn’t stop me, or some strange need I had to show him I was completely capable of causing things thatweren’tpain. I wasn’t a monster. I was just… I wasn’t sure what I was.

Or maybe, somewhere beneath it all, it really was the need burning through him that drove me forward. Whatever it was, my hand wrapped around my cock, and I nearly choked on the groan that punched from my chest when I gave my shaft a slow, teasing squeeze.

In the other room, even over the sound of the water, I heard a small grunt. It gave me pause—made me hesitate—but he didn’t tell me to stop. Wren didn’t come barging in to chain my hands behind my back. I hadn’t evenlockedthe bathroom door.

And I hadn’t realized how much Ineededthis until just now. I couldn’t stop the low sound that tore from my chest any more than I could still my fingers when they started to move. I stroked myself in quick, nearly desperate jerks of my wrist that were just this side of painful—desperate, needy. It wasn’tgood, but I could feel myself already flying toward the edge of orgasm. I’d never had time forgood. I’d never felt safe enough forgood. I’d just—

The sound of something heavy banging against the bathroom door made me startle so much that I ripped the shower curtain open with my hand still on my dick.

---