Page 105 of Wicked Devotion
Sometimes, it’s easier when they are both asleep. Like a veil is lifted, making it easier to think, to fuckingexist, because I know they are safe as long as I am watching over them.
I lie awake for what feels like hours, watching the steady rise and fall of their chests. The responsibility that rests on my shoulders is so heavy it presses me into the mattress, and a suffocating question forces itself down my throat.
Are they really safe with me? With someone whoconstantly has to keep the rotten part of himself from ripping out their hearts to crush them?
Overhearing their sickeningly sweet love declarations in the jacuzzi yesterday was fuel for the beast inside of me. For the part that wants to ruin, totake, just because I am too fucking damaged to give. And knowing that they deserve better, something genuine and real, is making everything worse.
Lily moves next to me, letting out a content sigh as she puts her hand around my arm.
“I can’t tell you what you mean to me,” I whisper, so quiet I’m not sure if the words are more than a thought.
“I can’t tell you the three words you want to hear. You shouldn’t crave it. My love isn’t love. It’s destruction camouflaged as something else, something that’sjustenough for you to stay, and on some days, I wish I could give you more, but—“
Sighing, I brush away a strand of hair that fell over her face.
“All I can offer is the truth. That I wouldn’t hesitate to take a life, or a hundred, just to keep you safe. That if the day ever comes, I would give my life for you because you’ve shown me a glimpse of something I don’t deserve.”
I press a faint kiss to her forehead, and under the covers, Lily’s hand finds mine.
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“Why is everything so sticky?” Lily asks, sitting up straight in between me and Logan, looking down at her crotch with a scrunched nose while my head is elsewhere.
The events of last night run through my mind like a movie. How I told Lily that I couldn’t sleep because I needed tofeelher. How she happily obliged and how Logan woke me up, the longing in his gaze so strong it made my heart almost burst out of my chest.
And I remember every single word he whispered to Lily once he was sure we were both asleep. Words that wrapped themselves around my heart like spiked chains, mixing love and pleasure and pain, and if it wasn’t for Lily, I wouldn’t believe that there was a way for me to experience love that doesn’t hurt.
Affection that is reciprocated instead of vanishing, like bloodied water running down the drain.
Logan lets out an amused huff, obviously unaware that I’ve heard everything.
“Yeah, sunshine, why is everything so sticky?”
“That’s your fault,” I mumble, mostly to myself, as I pull my boxers up and climb out of bed.
“Go and shower with her,” Logan says, yanking the blanket off of a groaning Lily. “I’ll make breakfast.”
“You? Breakfast?”
Lily tries to roll herself into a ball to avoid having to get up, and I tickle her feet.
“Can’t be that complicated. Take the breakfast stuff out of the fridge and the pantry, put the stuff on the table.” He shrugs, smiling at me in a way that has his canines showing.
I would find it charming. Would get butterflies in my stomach because Logan is doing something for me—forus—but after last night, I feel like I don’t know shit. That each fragment of affection I’ve ever gotten from Logan was nothing more than part of a calculation, a move in a game played against a completely oblivious opponent.
“What a gentleman,” I say with a forced smile.
With Lily in tow, I walk past Logan and head straight toward the bathroom.
I need to get this under control.
Getmeunder control, not for Logan, but for Lily. It isn’t her fault that I am the way I am and that my all still isn’t enough for Logan.
The shower goes by quickly, and having Lily by my side makes it easier to ignore how my heart aches. When we are freshly dressed and ready to join Logan in the living room, I’ve managed to compartmentalize my feelings to the point that allows me to sit down at the table without wanting to cause a scene.
Logan is already sitting at the dining table, arms crossed in front of his chest, and obviously proud of the breakfast he prepared. With a grin on his face, he watches as Lily and I fill our plates.
