Page 30 of Velvet Thorns
SHANNEN
No matterhow hard I try, I can’t separate the boy who once made me feel protected from the man he became, the stranger who stood by and let me bleed for the sake of people he called friends.
And now, somehow, I’ve let him pull us to this moment, where his breath is mine and his eyes sear into me like he never once looked away.
His dark hair falls over his eyes, his body practically pressing me to the edge of something I don’t even have a name for, and I want him in ways that feel dangerous.
I want him like I hate him.
I want him like I loved him and never stopped belonging to him, even when he decided I wasn’t his to keep.
I want him in the way you want to tear out someone’s heart and shove it down their throat, just to see if it still beats for you.
This isn’t lust. It’s a sickness. It’s years of silence and pain, twisted up in his relentless, psychotic obsession and my own desperate need to feel something that isn’t hollow.
I should be running, calling the police, or screaming for a restraining order. But I won’t because some screwed-up part of me likes being the center of his attention.
I have so many questions I’m terrified to ask, and even more scared to hear answered, but I need them all the same.
He’s dangerous. I can feel it in the way he watches me, but I can’t walk away until I figure out who Phoenix really is now. And I saynow,like that darkness in him is a new thing, and I haven’t always felt it coiled underneath his skin. I always knew it was there, but now I need to see every part of it.
“I have a room here.”
“Oh, perfect,” I snap. “Let’s head straight to the place where you probably have plastic sheeting on the floor and a meat cleaver under the bed. Hard fucking pass.”
“I’ve had years to hurt you. If that’s who I was, don’t you think I’d have already done it?”
“Am I meant to find that comforting?”
“Yes.” He reaches for me, brushing my hair back like he’s done it a thousand times in a different life. I know I should shove him away, but I don’t.
“We’ll go back to my room, but when I’ve heard enough, you’re leaving. You’re not staying while I sleep. Nonnegotiable.”
“I’ve watched you sleep plenty of times.”
“Jesus Christ, when did you get so creepy?”
“Maybe somewhere between losing you and watching other men touch you like they had any right. Or maybe the day we met, when I knew you’d always be a part of my life, and then I fucked it all up.”
“Okay,” I breathe out, pressing my fingertips against my temples because this is unreal, and I’m crazy for still standing here. “I’m not asking another question until there’s enough alcohol in my system to handle whatever the hell you’ve become.”
I shove past him, feeling his stare burn into the back of my neck, and by the time we reach my room, my hands are shaking so badly I don’t bother to hide it. I slide the key in, push the door open, and step inside. He follows, closing the door behind him with a click that sounds too final.
“Do you want a drink?”
“No.” His refusal is immediate. “I told you—it makes people do stupid shit, and I sure as hell don’t want to drink around you.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you grew up around enough people who weren’t sober when they should’ve been.”
My parents.
The words hit like a fist to the throat. Of course he remembers. He cataloged every bruise I attempted to hide under long sleeves and every busted lip I tried to cover with makeup I had to steal. He remembers the days I showed up at school, unfocused, with dried blood on my skin. He was there for all of it, and the only thing that felt safe in a world that wanted to break me.
Until he broke me first.
He sees the way my body goes rigid and how my breathing turns shallow and desperate as the memory of him abandoning me slams into my chest. And for the first time tonight, his composure cracks. Something dark flashes across his face, like watching me break is killing him too. He steps closer, his muscles straining against his black T-shirt, head tipping as he studies me, waiting to see if I’ll break or just bolt for the door and run.
