Page 52 of Just a Friend for the Lion

---

“Sex is one thing, Carter. I was prepared for that. I wanted that.”

She swallows, then chokes out, “But your bite? I didn’t ask for that. I don’t want to be tied to someone who doesn’t want me?—”

“MJ, I want you!”

“No, you don’t! You don’t just get to flip a switch when it’s convenient for your dick. Or because you got jealous that I talked to a few other guys tonight.”

I flinch like she slapped me.

“That’s not what this is?—”

“Oh my God,” she cuts me off, her eyes wild now. “You’re like a toddler, Carter! You saw someone else look at me and what—decided I was yours? Just because you wanted to mark your territory?”

I try to speak. I do. But there’s no breath in my lungs.

Because she’s not wrong.

And it kills me.

“I don’t want to be bound to someone who only wants me when he’s afraid someone else might,” she says, her voice trembling. “I deserve more than that. And you know what? I demand more than that. So whatever this is—whatever you think this is? No, I don’t want it.”

I flinch again.

She’s gutting me.

Carving out my chest with every word and leaving nothing but splinters behind.

Her eyes shine.

But not with lust.

With pain.

With betrayal.

And then—she turns.

And she’s gone.

Out the door.

Down the stairs.

Gone like smoke through my fucking fingers.

And I just stay there.

Frozen.

Staring at the empty space she left behind like maybe, if I wish hard enough, she’ll come back.

She doesn’t.

The silence swallows me whole.

Only the scent of her lingers—salt and heat and sugar and sex.

Her tears still on my skin. Her heartbeat still echoing in mine.

---