Page 39 of Penance

“And what did you get, Max?” I grit out, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw aches.

“I got on your nerves,” he shrugs off casually, so casually in fact that it makes me want to commit fucking murder.

He pushes up on his elbows, straightening up from leaning to standing, as though readying himself to leave the room.

“Well, actually, now that we’re in conversation. There’s something I’d like to say to you,Maddox,” I start, my eyes finally locking onto his heavenly aquamarine ones.

My breath just stops in my chest, time slows, my heart kicks into high gear and I bite my tongue so fucking hard I taste blood. The haunting look in his eyes sucks the life right out of me. His soul locked up tight, his demon playing dead. My heart aches so hard it’s like I’ve plunged a knife so deep inside my chest, it’s imbedded in, never to be removed again. Even if it were, a piece of the blade would remain behind, just to keep twisting and twisting andtwisting.

Carnage and destruction.

That’s all we’d be.

Everything between us is ruined.

We are so far beyond repair that nothing could ever fix us.

We’re nothing more than dense shadows and wistful memories.

Something inside me just cracks, a chasm of longing, of wishing, regrets. Everything just stings for a minute. Alongminute. I stare at him, he stares at me, but it’s not in the same way. When Max looks at me, all I feel is this uncomfortable itch, something so deeply rooted that I’ll never be able to soothe it. Max will forever be a piece of me, a tiny, splintered fragment stitched into the very fabric of my soul. Something I could never remove, even if I tore myself apart looking, he’d still always be there. He’s in my very essence, such a strong-willed pain in my side that I’d almost ache more without it.

I suddenly suck in a sharp breath, my eyes blinking, refocusing my attention. He’s sneering at me now, that violent hatred roaring like a fire behind his cyan eyes. His bottom lip split, nose bruised and cheekbone a pale shade of violet.

“Oh, yeah?” he chuckles, the sound venomous and deadly as he rolls his eyes dramatically.

“Yeah, actually,” I tell him, throwing myself into sitting.

The quick motion making me momentarily dizzy as the room flips, but I don’t care. I get to my feet, extra sway in my step as I close the large distance between us. Bypassing that fucking piano, my fingers running across the ivory keys as I pass, not hard enough to play, just enough to draw his eye. We both know why that piano’s there, why I couldn’t not have one in my house. Even though all I can play is fucking ‘twinkle, twinkle,’ it’s because of him. Because I’m so self-destructive that I just had to have the hideous monstrosity to ground me. To make me think of a simpler time, one where I wasn’t a murderer, where I wasn’t a victim left bleeding at the hands of perverted men. Where I was just a teenage girl irrevocably in love with a boy who had her whole heart. Every fucking damaged piece of it was for Maddox fucking Sharpe.

“If you ever,and I meanever,” I hiss, “lay your hands on my fucking boyfriend again. I willendyou. He ismine.I am the only one allowed to fuck that man up, do you understand me, Maddox? Do not make an enemy out of me. I’m not the same little girl you fucked over and left behind,” I hold his gaze for a second, making sure my promise sinks in.

Eyes unblinking, I sling my hair over one shoulder. Twisting in place, I start to march across the room. My socked feet whispering against the floor when a large hand clamps around my upper arm, violently tearing me back. I grunt as my back hits Max’s front. The air knocks from my lungs as he spins me around so fast, I momentarily lose my sight. My back slams into the glass wall, my head ricocheting off the window with a thunk. Max’s fist snaps out, his firm grip tightening as he flexes his fingers around my throat. Blue eyes ablaze, his thumb crushing my pulse. I smirk, my good arm hanging limply at my side. I’m not fighting him off, this is a game of whose dick’s bigger. And. I. Will.Win.

I chuckle in his face, my head relaxing back into the cold glass even as his grip tightens further, erasing all space between his palm and my neck. His fist around my throat like a lava hot collar, his heat seeping into me, scorching my insides. Tobacco and sickly-sweet icing sugar surrounds me in a dense, cloying cloud, his scent overwhelming every inch of me. Something about it feels so fucking right, him pinning me down, me unafraid. I clearly don’t have a normal person’s response to asphyxiation.

I suppose I just enjoy violence. It is my first language, after all.

“You threatening me, Princess?” the devil hisses and I grin, licking my waxy lips, noisily smacking them together.

“I don’t make threats,Maxi,” I rasp. “I make fucking promises,” I whisper.

Allowing my gaze to drop to his lips, before slowly drawing them back up to those haunting turquoise eyes.

“Do you want to play?” I ask teasingly, my head tilting to the right as much as is possible in his hold.

He allows the movement, but I think it’s subconscious.

Max’s breathing is heavy, his hard face pulled into anger, his nostrils flaring, jaw clenched. His rapid breath fanning across my face, if I were to push forward the slightest amount our lips would touch. But I don’t. That’ll only lead to a fucking catastrophe. Max’s chest rumbles with a low growl, his eyes narrowed firmly on mine. I blink up at him slowly, letting him see the new me, not the quiet little schoolgirl he once knew.

“Don’t fucking test me, Kyla-Rose,” he warns, his deep voice sending goosebumps across my flesh.

It’s like the room just dropped twenty degrees, everything about Maddox is cold. Threatening, haunting and ice. Fucking. Cold.

Movement over his shoulder captures my attention. Rubble moves into the room, just a single step inside the archway.

“Get the fuck out,” Max snarls, snapping his gaze over his shoulder.

Rubble doesn’t move, not a flinch in sight, approaching a step closer instead.

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