Page 200 of If Our Hearts Collide

“Of course you don’t.”

“I thought you could behave and not try to sneak away from my watch.”

“We’ve been through this. I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Clearly you do.”

“Why are you here?”

His eyes darken. “I belong here. You don’t.”

“Yuri disagrees.”

“Yuri has a kink for hurt fawns.”

I scrunch up my nose and make a face. “I’m not a hurt fawn.”

“You are as close to a female Bambi as they come, Princess.”

I’m sure I am scoffing. How can he be so annoying? “Great. Now everyone sees me as damaged goods.”

He takes a step closer.

I’m not scared, but I sure am intimidated. Why does he have this effect on me?

“There is nothing damaged about you, Penny. Except for your faulty view of safety. You aren’t safe here, and I want you to leave.”

I prop my hands on my hips. “The website states otherwise.” Well, it was rather vague and a bit cryptic.

“Let me take you home.”

I keep my stance. “No.”

“Penny…”

The man is so tightly wound up that he could make a friendly game of hopscotch turn violent, and in turn he’s making me want to hit him.

“Ineedthis place.”

“You need to be home.”

“You don’t know what I need! You just don’t get it!”

“Explain it to me then, and maybe you’ll one day realize that we’re more alike than you think.”

“Doubtful.”

“Try.”

“I’m broken, Collins. There’s no amount of therapy that can fix the damage that was caused the day Mark drugged me. So, please, just go. Step aside and allow me to repair whatever is salvageable on my own.”

“Here, Penny? You think you will find some sort of healing here—in a kink club with a bunch of strangers?”

“At least I can test the waters and won’t have the hovering guilt of disappointing someone by not being enough. Here, I can be anyone I want to be without the fear of commitment.”

“Not here, Penny. Find somewhere else to work through these gnawing fears.”

“Don’t you realize that the darkness whispers to me no matter what light the day brings? It finds me. No matter where I am. No matter what I’m doing. It finds me! I can’t look at a man without thinking—if just for a second—how he can hurt me. And you know what the sick thing is? I actually want that pain. At least with the pain, I can feel fucking alive and not this numb, hollowed-out shell. So I keep finding myself here or in other compromising places, hoping to welcome that exhilaration and not hide from it.”

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