Page 188 of Boy of Ruin
Instead, I watch as her pretty pink lips turn down into a frown, a small crease forming between her dark brows.
She flings the covers off, swings her legs over the side of the bed and glances down at the wooden floors, snatching up my black T-shirt, a pair of cotton shorts and pulling it all on.
I watch her, holding my breath, those tears still welling up behind my eyes. What the fuck is she doing?
“You don’t get to do this,” she finally says, tugging down the oversized shirt, as if it’ll help erase the memory of seeing his fucking name. She steps toward me, her finger pointed in my direction. “You don’t get to fucking do this. Stop fucking cry!” she snaps, dropping her hand and closing her eyes a second. “You fucking—You fucking cheated on me. Multiple times, with multiple women.” Her voice is little more than a whisper, but her words are broken.
Cutting me open all over again as I lean against the wall.
“You refused to get help! You fucking refused to open up to me, to let me,” she slaps her hand against her chest, “open up to you.” She keeps her hand there, curling her fingers into a fist. “You told me all about the fucking bitches you wanted to fuck, Lucifer, fuck you.” She takes another step closer, her fist still over her heart. “You don’t deserve me. You don’t fucking deserve me.”
She turns away, but I grab her arm, pulling her back.
She tries to get out of my grip, but I grab her other arm, too, holding her in front of me.
“Let go of me,” she hisses, her silver eyes full of so much rage, it physically hurts to look at. “Let fucking go of me. Fuck you. I hate what you’ve done to me. To my fucking…life.” Her voice breaks, her shoulders slumping as she goes nearly limp, stops trying to get away from me. “Sometimes, Lucifer, I hate you, too.” It sounds like a confession, those words that drive into my heart so deep I can’t even breathe.
I hold her tighter and there’s space between us, but I can’t let her go.
“Do you love him?” I ask her, my voice so quiet, I’m not even sure she’s heard me.
But when her eyes meet mine, I know she has. She’s angry all over again. “This isn’t about him!” she snarls, throwing up her hands, trying to get away again. I yank her closer, her hands planting against my bare chest as she tilts her head up to look at me. “This isn’t fucking about him. It’s about you, and your family, and what they did to me. What they fucking did to me.” She’s breaking apart in my arms, for the first time. I’ve never seen her like this.
Never seen her cry, not like this. Even at Maverick’s, it wasn’t like this.
It’s a full body sob that rips through her, her shoulders shaking as she beats her head against my chest, over and over, hurting me. Her.
“They fucking ruined me, Lucifer, they fucking ruined me!” Her nails dig into my skin and she buries her face in my chest, her hot tears trailing down my chest. “They fucking ruined me. My body,” she convulses against me, a scream tearing through her throat. “My fucking mind. They ruined me for you. For anyone.”
I still can’t breathe. I can’t speak.
I wrap my arms around her back as she falls apart.
“They took everything from me. They took it all.” Her nails are digging deeper into my skin, those tears flowing freer. “They took it from him too,” she whimpers. Then she picks her head up, looking at me with watery and red eyes. “You did too,” she chokes out even as I hold her closer, our bodies flush together. “You let him rot there. How could you do that to him? How could you…” She closes her eyes tight, her lips pressed together as she tries to breathe.
I don’t know what to do.
How to feel.
What to say.
I imagine him in that cage.
She opens her eyes. “How could you let that happen? I thought you were…I thought you were my fucking devil, come to light the way to hell. I thought it was…us. Against the fucking world. But you don’t play fair with me. You’re not beside me. Is it because I’m…broken? Is it because you hate me? Is it because you think I’m disgusting and—”
I grip her chin in my hand, jerk her head up as I bow my head over her, our lips brushing. “I don’t think that. I’ve never fucking thought that.”
“How could you let those things happen to him? When all that shit was happening to me, you were letting it happen to him!” She slaps her hand against my chest, crying all over again.
But I think about it. About Pammie. About her touching me. Grinding against me. Her mouth on me, her words.
I think about how she went through that. Lilith. When she was far younger than I was, and for years afterward. Different men, different families. Different people that were supposed to care for her and love her and protect her and all they did was break her. Hurt her. Abuse her.
How many times did she want to die?
How many times did she hate herself?
How deep did that self-loathing go, infecting her veins? Poisoning her mind? Her fucking soul?
