Page 4 of Broken Pieces
I want him to speak first. To blink. For him to taste the sting of standing in front of someone who won’t fucking break.
His eyes stay locked on mine, unwavering. Confidence rolls off him, the kind sinking its teeth into soft skin and waiting for the bleed.
I meet it with everything I have.
Spine straight. Muscles coiled. My heart thuds hard behind my ribs, but I don’t flinch.
He wants to see what I’ll do when I’m pushed.
So I give it to him.
“You lost?” I say, voice low, laced with venom. “Or just wandering through hell to see who’s still breathing in this dump?”
The words hit their mark.
He doesn’t even blink. His mouth curves into something that isn’t a smile. Something meant to slice skin and leave a mark.
And fuck, it does.
“I’m just here checking if the queen of sarcasm’s still holding court,” he says, voice dripping with lazy confidence. “Looks like I’m in luck.”
His voice scrapes down my spine, gravel-edged and smooth all at once. The kind of sound turning every filthy thought into something inevitable. It doesn’t fit here, not in this kitchen reeking of cheap coffee and failure. His voice belongs in the dark corners of the city, pressed up against walls, whispered through clenched teeth, dangerous enough to make you forget yourself.
I bite back the twitch of a smile and let a slow grin spread across my mouth instead.
It’s cold. Controlled.
The kind that never reaches my eyes and doesn’t need to. It carries a threat on its own.
His gaze lingers, and I catch the shift in it. The flicker of interest, the dark amusement telling me he likes the fight. Proof I’m not another girl ready to fold.
“Annoying… Cute,” I say. “You’ve got five minutes before I make you regret setting foot in here.”
He pushes off the doorframe and steps closer, closing the distance only enough for the air to thicken between us. Close enough for me to feel it.
His laugh is low, curling through the room until it knots low in my stomach, twisting everything I don’t want to admit.
“Is that a promise or a threat?” he asks, his voice edged with amusement. A sound cutting and caressing in the same breath. His eyes stay locked on mine, steady, daring me to answer, to play the game he already knows I can’t walk away from.
“Depends if you’re smart enough to survive it.” My voice is steady, but the fire behind it burns bright and unashamed.
Something darker curls at the corners of his mouth, the spark in his eyes catching flame until it holds me in place.
For a single breath, the world strips itself bare.
There’s no peeling paint, no flickering light, no chairs marked with burn marks. All of it fades beneath the pull between us.
We are two forces staring each other down, neither willing to bend, neither willing to break.
“Oh, I don’t just survive,” he says, voice low and certain. “I break the rules while I’m at it.”
The way he says it is unapologetic, smug, daring.
And fuck, I hate the part of me wanting to see which rules he would break for me. Worse, I hate the thought of which ones he could make me want to break for him.
That gets to me, and he knows it.
The grin tugging at his mouth dares me to answer, dares me to keep playing.
