Page 50 of Wicked Devotion
“Care to explain?”
“It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
I loosen my grip, and Max takes the opportunity to straighten his spine and step away from the wall.
“Nothing?” The annoyed sounds coming from him make my vision tunnel. “Couple inches to the left, and you know where that bullet would have ended up? No, of course you don’t.”
And Max has the audacity to fuckingshrug.
“I’m fine, Logan. F-I-N-E. It doesn’t even need to be stitched, so stop making a goddamn scene. You’re acting like I almost died.”
Almost died.
The words echo in my head as some fucked up movie starts running through my mind. Images of Max’s lifeless body pop up like a slideshow straight out of hell. Of my hands, tainted with his blood, because I came too late. They turn into images of me and the others as we watch a coffin get lowered into the ground. And then it’s just darkness, so thick and suffocating I can taste it on my tongue.
“So you wanna die?” My hand wanders to the gun tucked away in the back of my pants. There’s only one way I’ll ever let him go.
“That’s not what I said—“
“Shut up.”
The muzzle of my gun presses against Max’s temple while he stares at me like a deer in the headlights. My perfect prey, pupils blown, lips parted, not daring to move or to breathe. But no way of showing his submission will ever be enough.
I wish he would understand what I am not able to; I need him to grasp the extent of all these fucking feelings he evokes in me. All these feelings slip right through my fingers when I try to get a hold of them, to rip them out so I can drown them, burn them, tear them to shreds. Anything, just so I don’t have to feel them.
“Logan—“
“No. You just don’t get it.”
I refuse to accept that I don’t get it either. There are many things Ijust don’t getsince all of this started. Max is the first person who has made me lose control. I gave him too much power over me, and now I’m haunted by the fucking thought of a world without him.
“I am the only one who has the right to hurt you. Your tears belong to me, your blood, your pain, it’s all mine. I get to decide if you live or die. And if you ever dare to die—to fucking leave me—it’s going to be at my hands.”
The fire inside me burns so brightly I barely notice how Max puts his hand on the back of my head. He pulls me closer until my forehead rests against his, so close I feel his heart racing behind his chest.
“Promise me,” he whispers against my lips. “Promise me I won’t have to spend a single day on this earth without you.”
His lips crash against mine, and the roles are reversed all of a sudden. For the first time, it’s Max who greedily takes.
“I missed you so fucking much,” he murmurs in between demanding kisses.
“I was with you the whole time,” I say before I’m silenced again.
“Not like this.”
I decide against arguing with his nonexistent logic.
“That’s what’s getting you hard? Really?” I mock when he presses his hips against me. The fog in my brain finally clears up, calming me down enough to put down my gun and throw it onto the bed.
“It’s the adrenaline,” he says, but the grin on his face and the sparkle in his eyes speak another language.
“You’ve got issues, Sergeant.”
“Well, you basically told me you lo—” he stops himself and lets his hands wander down to pull at the buttons of my cargos. “That I’m kind of important to you. And the gun, well… I really don’t think you’re in a place to shame anyone.”
I try not to focus on what he almost said. A lot of dangerousalmost’shappening today, and it’s barely getting dark outside.
“C’mon, please,” Max whines, and I have to keep him from shoving his hand down my pants because he’s somehow convinced he deserves to get fucked after everything he did.
