Page 181 of Paradox
“No… No! I’m not going to—”
“I need to clean your back.”
“I don’t care about my back.”
“I do.”
“Ahhhhh!” I scream again at the top of my lungs. “Show some fucking emotion!”
Eden clenches the tattoo stick so hard in his hand I’m shocked the metal isn’t bending in his grip. His body… It’s not shaking, it’s… vibrating.
His head remains down, but his eyes look up at me.
“This is the only thing stopping me from burning this cabin to the ground with the both of us inside it. So I’m gonna need you to calm the fuck down before I do something I’ll regret.”
My chin quivers. “I don’t wanna calm down.”
“I will tear your family apart if they try to keep you from me, Jin. But I don’t wanna do that. I don’t wanna make your life harder. I…” His eyes drop back to his leg to finish?, the last letter of my name. “I promised you I wouldn’t be that man anymore.”
“But this is different. I can see how much you’re hurting, so let it out. I wanna see you mad. Just as mad as you were when I first showed up. I don’t want you to hurt me, but Idowant you to fight for me. I fell for you while I still had bruises around my neck, now it’s your turn for some. I want you just as covered in them as I was because you promised me that nothing in the entire world wouldeverstop us from being together.”
“I’m…” Eden drops the tattoo stick and looks at his hands. He turns them over, then balls them into tight fists. “I’m so scared.”
Tentatively, at first, I take a step closer, but before I know it I’m kneeling in front of him. “I’m scared, too.”
“No…” He looks me dead in the eyes, and all I wanna do is crawl inside his chest so he can protect me. “I’m not scared of losing you… I’m scared of what I might do to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
I’d be terrified if I didn't feel his love for me gushing out of his body and straight into mine.
He was such a monster, so cruel in the way he tortured me.
I know what he’s capable of.
And this anger, this is what I needed from him.
I’ll help him set the cabin on fire so we can fuck in the warmth of the flames.
“Are you scared for me, or for you?” I ask, and as I do, I brush back the hair hanging in his face, then hold the back of his head.
He leans into my grip. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about me. My parents can hate me all they want.”
“But—”
I silence him by yanking his hair as I kneel above him.
His eyes are cloudy as he stares up at me.
I can still feel every bit of tension in him, like he hasn’t taken a breath since he let my name slip out.
Leaning closer, my own hair falls forward. My eyes travel from his nose, to his lips, and then to the darkness of his blown out pupils. “Do what you need to do.”
His fingertips touch my sides like he’s not sure if I’m really there, only to grip my waist a second later to pull me in. And my god is he desperate.
If shit wasn’t already on the fan, I’d be getting the fucking of my life.
So much of me still wants it, though.
