Page 135 of Inevitable Destruction

EVERETT

“Breathing”—Zero 9:36

Dominik’sthe first one to speak, but he doesn’t sever our connection. For that, I’m grateful, though I’m not sure I want to have this conversation with my soft cock still in his ass. But I’d rather us be connected as he speaks the words that will keep us apart forever.

“I went by your house,” he tells me, surprising me with those words. I didn’t expect him to go looking for me. I thought he came here to visit his parents’ site.

“Yeah,” I grumble, not giving him more than that, though I know I should.

“You’re selling it?” He tries to lift himself from my chest, but I tighten my hold, and he relaxes again, instead tracing his finger along my chest, over my tattoos.

“I’m selling the house, sold all of my shit, everything but the Harley and some clothes back at my hotel.” He deserves my honesty, so I take a deep breath in preparation for the next question I know he’s going to ask.

“Why?”

There it is.

“Because I can’t be here anymore.”

“I can’t either,” he mumbles into my skin, surprising me with his candor. I press a kiss to the top of his head, breathing in the scent of his sweaty hair.

“I got rid of my apartment. Well, I had Essa do that, along with most of my shit, too. It all just feels like baggage now, and I need freedom.” My body stiffens at the mention of her name falling so casually from his lips. He must sense that because he finally pulls away, his skin peeling from mine.

I immediately feel the gaping hole of his absence.

“She helped me, Rhett. She saved me, really.” I glare at him, unable to help it, and he smiles, brushing his finger over my downturned lips, tracing my mustache and down to my beard.

My heart lurches when I see his faint dimples gracing his still pale skin. I feel like I’ve won the greatest gift seeing that alone after all I’ve done. I press a thumb into the indent, and Dominik grabs my wrist, keeping my touch pinned to him, his smile deepening.

My hammering heart slows, each beat wracking against my ribs, so intense I can feel it in my temples. “Still love your pissed off looks.” He shrugs when I quirk a brow. So many questions surge to the surface, but I tamper them down. He doesn’t owe me a goddamn thing.

“I’ve been in rehab.” He gives me the answer to my most prominent question. I bite my lip, pulling at the skin as I mull over his statement. My throat closes up tight, making it hard to breathe with the sting in my eyes traveling through me.

“It’s not your fault.” He leans down and presses a kiss to my lips. I let him—because how could I not—but the moment he pulls away, I jerk my head to the side and slam my eyes closed, refusing to see what’s in front of me.

Remorse and shame are two evil fucking monsters, ones I battle with on a daily basis, and hearing those words set them the fuck off.

“You can’t fucking say that. You can’t lie to my face, Dominik,” I growl, my self-hatred lacing into my tone.

“I can because I’m the one that went through it. You don’t know what I’ve been through these last six months—which is not your fault. I left without saying goodbye, or telling you a fucking word, but how could I say goodbye to you?” His hand caresses my face again, and I snap. My arm shoots out, and my fingers wrap around his throat. I feel him swallow against my palm, not doing a goddamn thing to satiate the ache, the hunger pulsating through me.

“Tell me,” he rasps. “Tell me how we could’ve said goodbye.” I don’t answer because I can’t. The dishonest words are stuck in my throat, and he knows it.

“Exactly. That’s not who or what we are. It wouldn’t have worked. I’ve been healing, Rhett. Slowly, painfully healing. I’m nowhere near where I need to be, but the urges—they’re not there like they were.” He absentmindedly traces the scars on his forearm, and I swallow, my eyes fluttering closed with shame as I put my fingers over his.

“I was terrified,” he confesses, locking me in place with his words, “that seeing you would be a trigger. And in a way, it was the biggest, but not to my drug addiction—to my need for you.

“It took me a long time to be able to separate the two when for so long, I thought they were one in the same.”

“Aren’t they?” I choke out, hating and loving everything he’s telling me with equal measure.

“No.” One word resonates through me, filling me with… that miserable bitch called hope.

I push Dominik away from me, suddenly unable to breath. I gasp, fighting for air as I claw at my chest. My ears ring, and the edges of my vision fade to black.

I stumble from the car, landing on the soft grass just off to the side. My bare ass sinks into the mud as I dig at my throat, my chest, anything to get me oxygen.

Or maybe I don’t want to breathe because there’s no fucking way this is real, that Dominik is here, like thi—touching me, talking to me.

---