Page 56 of Grave Love
She shakes her head, gnawing her lip. Her chin trembles, and everything inside of me breaks. My nostrils flare. Sweat beads along my temples.
How could someone hurt her like that?
“The dean politely asked me to drop out,” she adds. “My grandmother started making me pay her back for the tuition.”
Conflicting thoughts war for dominance in my skull. I shouldn’t give a shit about Ren’s past or why she’s telling me all of this. She’s a victim.My willing victim.I’ve fucked and killed for much less. I’ve throat-fucked a woman until she passed out from the lack of oxygen. I’ve strangled a woman with a rope until her cunt squeezed around my dick from the will to survive. I’ve even fucked a woman while she cried, with a gun pressed to her temple.
Ren hasbarelytasted what I can give her.
These thoughts—theseneeds—swirl inside of me, filling me with the desire to show her everything that’s possible. Everything I can give her.
It kills me that she thinks she doesn’t deserve that.
“Is that why you want to die?” I ask, frustration obvious in my tone. “Because some dickless idiot made youthinkyou weren’t good enough? You realize how much he’s like your grandmother, don’t you? Telling you who and what you’re supposed to be. Dictating your entire perception of yourself.” With each sentence, the words become louder; I don’t stop myself. “Is that what this is, Ren? Your need to die while fucking? You base your self-worth on what your ex and your grandmother say about you?”
She blinks, stunned by my words. Perhaps she’s shocked by my honesty. That I would force her to see the truth of her situation.
Perhaps she’s surprised that I raised my voice. That I got angry over the reasons she devalues herself.
Her grandmother, her ex, us? None of us are any better than the rest. We’re insignificant. Animals. We don’t matter. And it kills me—rips me to fucking shreds—knowing that she doesn’t understand that.
“You think you aren’t good enough,” I say, my voice softening, the need to be tender with her overpowering the rage. “That’s why you want to die?”
Her dull brown eyes meet my whitish-blue ones. There’s an emptiness inside of her that reflects back to me. That sees me for what I am too.
I don’t need to hear her words to know her answer; everything I said about her grandmother and her ex is true. The worst part is herself.
Sheis her own worst critic.
“There’s no point, is there?” she asks in an emotionless voice. Her answer is as simple to her as the air we’re breathing. “Why do you want to live?”
A light pain fills my chest, my mind radiating, unsure of which direction to run. Where to drag her with me.
There was a time when I was like Ren. Where nothingness seemed better than enduring. Where death seemed like a sanctuary.
WhydidI keep going?
Ren’s gaze holds mine, and I picture her lying on the gurney, her head covered in that canvas bag. How I may have known exactly who she was, but that I didn’t truly understand how messed up she was underneath all of that.
I picture her in that dirt hole. In the broken coffin. Filthy and needy, doing exactly what I said, even when it terrified her.
I picture her when she comes—her beautiful, contorted face, struggling to give me what I want. Giving it to me anyway.
Some tiny part of herwantsto survive. And I’m supposed to kill her.
I could do it right now. I could give her the secobarbital in my pocket. I could use the excavator to bulldoze her soft body into a grave, covering her with enough dirt that none of the mortuary clients notice her presence.
But then I wouldn’t be able to make her scream and cry. I wouldn’t be able to force that numbness out of her veins andmakeher see the reality around us. I wouldn’t be able to make her suffer her own innate will to live.
My dick hardens, addicted to seeing that pure instinct in her face when she comes. Her eyes flick down to my bulge, and subtly, her knees spread, reacting to me so instinctively, that my skin tingles.
She touches her neck, waiting for me.
Why do you want to live?she had asked. There’s an answer for that.
“I’ll show you,” I say.
Chapter21
