Page 56 of Break Me
Because Ava is here.
Because of what I know Bianca is capable of doing to me. Because when we were both broken—her from a mother that never wanted her and me from parents that made sure I knew they were never really mine—we put each other back together again.
But she walks toward me, and she’s wearing dark jeans and a red, silk blouse that makes her brown skin look perfect.
It is perfect.
Her hair is up, wisps of black strands around her face, and those dark eyes are glued to mine. She looks skinnier than the last time I saw her, the swell of her hips smaller. I wonder if she’s still modeling. Or still using.
Her face isn’t broken. Her neck doesn’t have bruises.
“Benji,” she says a little breathlessly, in that throaty voice I could never get enough of. We weren’t faithful in the usual sense. Our appetites were too big for that. But when she was moaning my name, I didn’t give a damn.
Even still, it’s not Ava’s Southern accent and it doesn’t do to me what it once did.
I swallow. “Bianca.” What else am I supposed to say?
She’s a few inches from me in this dim hallway and I glance beyond her, wondering what Ava is doing right now, thankful I got us the private room. Grateful she won’t see me here, like this.
“It’s been so long,” Bianca breathes.
Yeah. It sure as hell has. Three years.
“Yeah.” I slip my hands in my pockets, one hand touching the note I crumpled up.
Her eyes roam over my forearms where my sleeves are pushed up, to the tattoos there, then up my chest, finally resting on my eyes again. She takes another step. I can smell her. Some perfume that smells like candy that she always wore, when she was mine. When I was hers.
Before she fucked me up.
“I’m sorry I never—”
I laugh darkly, cutting off her words. “Never visited me in the prison you put me in?”
Her eyes narrow and she cocks her head, her hoop earrings swinging as she does.
“That’s not fair.”
Did she really just say that? This time, I take a step toward her, backing her against the wall. But I don’t dare touch her.
“Really, Bianca?” I ask her quietly. “You wanna have a discussion with me about fairness?” My heart slams in my chest, anger making my blood pressure rise. I don’t let myself think about what I saw. The cameras. Her. Any of it. But even though I’m blocking out the past, she’s here. Right now.
The present.
She runs her tongue along her bottom lip. She likes this, me in her face. Her back against the wall.
I close my eyes against the memories of her that are fighting to come in. My hands on her skin. Her legs wrapped around my waist. Her in that bathtub…
No.
My eyes open when I hear her laugh. “I was in a bad place, Benji. And you were too busy—”
I slam my fist against the wall beside her head. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
She glares at me. “You know you were. You neglected me, Benji.”
Bullshit. Everything I did had been for her, but she knows that. I don’t bother giving her the satisfaction of saying it out loud. She swallows and I’m breathing hard.
“But things are different now, B. I’m clean. We could,” she chews on her bottom lip, “we could try again.”
