Page 87 of Chaos
Just because that’s not a choice that you would make doesn’t mean it was wrong. Some people love to be watched. Some people also love to share.
Me:
And you’re hardly one to judge. You know exactly what I do for a living, and you pay me for the privilege of watching. So do us both a favor and get off your high horse.
I bit my lip as I read my message back. I was supposed to be smoothing things over, not picking a fight. But I wasn’t wrong, dammit. He didn’t get to be a judgmental hypocrite.
C:
I’m sorry.
C:
It’s just... this doesn’t seem like the Merri I know. But maybe that’s because you don’t let me know the real you. I’ve fallen in love with you and now I realize that might all be a lie.
Me:
It’s not a lie.
My head was reeling over the confession he’d just laid at my feet, so I really didn’t have anything else to say to him. He was inlove with me? Andi had warned me about the dangers of getting too close to clients for this very reason. But Cole was different.
I squeezed my eyes shut when his next message came in. I wasn’t ready to look at it yet. I’d told Cole the person I was with him wasn’t a lie, but I’d been lying to him since the day we met. No matter what he thought he felt for me, he’d never know the real me. He couldn’t.
I was a succubus. He was a human. That was the start and end of our story.
For a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that I would never not need to feed off the sexual energy of my partners, and he alone would never be enough to sustain me—assuming, of course, I didn’t kill him outright. I would never be able to give up camming and have the white picket fence happily ever after he was clearly envisioning.
I should put us both out of our misery and end this right here, right now. Block him from my contacts and my site. Cut him off for his own good.
Before I read his response, I typed one of my own.
Me:
I’m never going to be the girl you really want, Cole.
God, why was my lower lip trembling? Had he really worked his way past my walls without me noticing?
I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. He was the only person, other than Andi, who I’d had any long-term contact with. Besides Lilith, but she didn’t count. She was family. They were the closest thing I had to friends. You know, for people I’d never actually met face-to-face.
My phone buzzed in my hand, and this time I read his message and the one before it.
C:
I love you.
Me:
I’m never going to be the girl you really want, Cole.
C:
You don’t get to decide that for me.
C:
I mean it, Merri. You are the only person I’ve ever felt safe enough with to fully be myself. You know how limited I am because of my situation. You also know what it means for me to offer to share my space with another person. And if the words alone aren’t enough to convince you, maybe this will help you understand just how serious I am about us.
The next message he sent was an address.Hisaddress, I assumed.
