Page 70 of Love's Ace

I wasn’t sure I could stand it if I had to watch the way he looked at me change.

“At first, it was just him. He’d… take what he wanted when he wanted. Beat the fuck out of me if I said no. I’m not small, but… I don’t know. He made me feel that way, and… then…”Fuck,I didn’t want to keep talking. I didn’t want Wren to know these things about me.

But for some reason, it mattered that he knew.

For some reason, I really cared what he thought about me.

“Theo?” His voice was soft, so soft.

“He passed me around to his friends.” I shrugged and looked up at him, helplessly drawn to his expression, aching at the possibility that he was going to see me differently because he knew all the ways I’d been broken.

His face was a storm, his eyes dark and clouded, and I dropped back to let my shoulders hit the cold wall.

Fuck, I was afraid. Every time I’d been told that I was broken—that I wasdamaged—played in my head, and my mind tried to conjure up how those words would sound coming from Wren’s lips. It would be better if I said them first.

“It’s… okay if you don’t want to be around me anymore, Wren. It’s okay if you don’t want anything to do with me. I told you… I don’t know how to be touched without being hurt. I’d rather remember before you changed your mind about me—”

He closed the distance between us, bringing his fingers up and gently pressing them to my lips.

“I don’t think any differently about you, Theo.” The fury in his eyes didn’t fade, but he looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “I just want to kill that asshole, and every single one of them that hurt you.”

“It’s not worth it.” I murmured against his fingers, but he kept going.

“Does he live here?”

I nodded without thinking, and when he took my chin, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Close?”

“I should have realized when you brought me here that this is where he was. I’m sorry, I—”

“Where?”

I half whispered the address and shook my head. “But it doesn’tmatter, Wren. That’s over. That part of my life is done. I don’t want to think about it, or Erin. Or any of this. I just… Fuck.” I clenched my hands at my sides and forced myself to look at him again. “I don’t want this to change what happened in the graveyard. I don’t want it to change…” My hand drifted up, and I ran my finger along the red thread like it held all the words I couldn’t say wrapped in its strands. They were words I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to manage, but a small part of me hoped Wren could feel them on the back of my tongue.

Maybe it would be enough.

His expression softened, and he lifted his hand, tracing the line between us and slowly drifting to where it connected to my chest.

Over my heart.

“Theo, it doesn’t change a damn thing. You’re… Fuck… Don’t you understand what you mean to me? How Ifeel? I think…” Wren’s fingers smoothed out, palm pressing flat to the black swirl in my chest, to every bit of my darkness.

To my heart.

To the confession trapped behind that beating pulse.

A sudden surge of fear overwhelmed me. My hand shot out, and I caught his arm—even though the black on my fingertips had spread to my wrists, even though my nails bit into his skin and drew blood, Wren didn’t flinch.

“Stop. Please, I…” I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t think around the shape of the words we weren’t saying. I couldn’t think around what thismeant. What thisreallymeant.

“I don’t have to—”

“No, you don’t get it. You have to stop unless you really mean it.”

“I already told you. Of course I—”

“Please,” I almost felt bad cutting him off. I felt even worse when tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t stop them from streaking down my cheeks. I drew his hand tighter to my chest and held it over the thundering of my heart. He had to understand. “Please… You can’t touch me like this unless you mean it. You can’tsaythe shit you’re saying to me unless you promise you’re going to stay.” Wren’s eyes went wide, but I couldn’t stop. I’d torn myself open, telling him about my past. I’d laid myself bare and broken at his feet, and he had all the power in the world to shatter me now. “Wren… you’re the realest thing I’ve ever felt, theonlything that’s ever beenmine. I can’t see the way you’re staring at me right now and survive if you end up looking at me like you did when we first met. If you end up hating me because I did something and you—”

---