Page 27 of Make Me, Break Me

I betrayed him, and now he might never want to come back.

Dex drew me into a shadowy area away from the house and paused next to an ancient oak. Its trunk was wider than his oversized shoulders. A flick of his wrist, and I found my back pressed against its thick girth. The rough bark caught on the beaded dress, sending red glitter pinging in all directions as my skirt rode up.

His hand clamped down on my hip in a possessive move that left me panting. A breath later, he crowded my space. His hands released me to cup my face as his thighs pressed to mine, his fathomless, tortured gaze seeking answers in my own.

“Why did you do it? Because it hurt when I wasn’t there? Or did you just have a tantrum and decide I wasn’t worth your time anymore? Thatwearen’t worth it?” He shot question after question at me, not waiting for answers we both knew I wouldn’t give him anyway. “You asked about sharing one time. Is that what you want? What do I need to do to keep you, Zin? Offer you what Falcon has?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to throw his words back at him, to say that there was noweand never had been. But that wasn’t the truth, and if this was the last time he touched me, then he deserved my shredded version of honesty, and everything that I'd been hiding from myself behind a veil of lust while I fell in love by accident.

“I made a mistake,” I whispered, staring up at his hard face, the way his gaze searched mine until I trembled in his hands under his intensity, knowing he could be so much worse, but wasn’t. What did that mean? “I hurt when you didn’t come back. I mean, I know it’s my fault—” My apology fractured when he made a feral, violent sound through his teeth. I closed my eyes and pushed on, regardless. “You’re right. I wanted you to hurt too. But I wanted to get a reaction, anything out of you for leav—” I choked on a sob, my cheeks cold and coated in salt and regret. “For abandoning me. Because this is what Ididn’t want,Dex. I didn’twantto care.” I shoved at his chest as his face blurred. “I didn’t want to fall for– for–”

Dex watched me flounder on in silence, and this unspeaking version of him was worse than if he’d yelled curses at me.

“You,” I finished in a whisper.

No amount of tequila could numb the pain that sliced through me at that last admission. I'd tried to hide my truth from him and myself when I'd lied to both of us in saying I hated him. I didn’t get attached because it hurt, but here we were, not attached by omission, and it hurt all the same. Far too much.

Dex, the Heart Breaker. Just like I expected when I made the rules so he wouldn’t stay, and I wouldn’t end up like this.

Again.

I leaned my head back against the tree, my eyes closed to avoid dealing with the raw turmoil roiling behind his eyes.

“Nu-uh, Zin. You look at me when you apologize. I need to know that you hurt as bad as I do right now,” he grated the words out through white lips. “I need to know if your games are finished.”

If we are finished.

He didn’t say it, and neither did I. There was a finality to those words. Forming them felt too real, like maybe we couldn't take them back if either one of us said them. I shook my head, opening my eyes like he demanded, but instead of looking at him, I stared up into the underside of the oak’s broad canopy.

Because I couldn't bear to look at him only to see my own fears reflected back at me. Right now that brought reality too close.

I wanted to go back to kissing the Lord of Nothingness in the party and pretending we could do what we wanted. I wanted to be a drunk wallflower who nobody saw. I wanted to be the girl with the broken heart, hiding from the man she thought wasn’t looking for her, because anything was better than this.

No you don’t.

Or I could keep lying to myself like I had for the last two and a half years since I first met Dex and fell head over heels for him when I pretended I didn’t.

“Seeing someone else kiss you fucking ripped my soul apart. No one else should taste you like I do. But if you want to hurt, baby, then I can provide that.” Dex’s thumbs brushed away my tears, his warm breath so close it dried the tracks on my cheeks. “Close your eyes, Zin, andfeel.” His mouth slanted over mine, he kissed me, hard and deep and all the things that Dex was.

But this was…different. Not rough, not playful. His touch was possessive, knowing me. But also asking a question.

I knew the answer, but I couldn't bring myself to say it.

Even if it meant this was our last kiss.

His tongue tasted every part of my mouth, denying the touch of another man, erasing Nelson’s fake kiss as he replaced it with one of his own, though nothing about Dex was fake. It never had been. He was the real thing, no matter how many times I denied that to myself and to him. He saw it. He knew, and he tried so hard to tell me.

But I kept running. Because I’d been hurt, and I never wanted to be owned. Having someone consider me their possession terrified me, right up until the moment when I thought I lost Dex, and he showed me exactly what I was missing in denying him those sleepovers, breakfasts, morning cuddles meant. The dates he begged me to share.

The lunches. Walks.

My knees buckled as Dex drew away, my back sliding down the length of the ancient trunk until my butt hit the cold, unforgiving ground with no knowing hands to hold me up.

Because when I opened my eyes, Dex was gone and the only familiar figure I recognized was Nelson loping across the frat house yard. His pale gray eyes were tired, and an icepack waspressed to his jaw. He slid down the trunk next to me, offering a comfort I couldn’t take because he wasn’t the man I wanted.

I turned my head to the side, curled my knees to my chest, and let my heart break beneath the shadow of a tree who stood firm at my back.

I just wished it was Dex instead.

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