Page 210 of Fury

Dammit.

I followed her. “Why not? Don’t run away from me. You’re not doing that again.”

She tried to catch her breath, pushing her wild hair behind her ears, her eyes darting over my cock, my legs, up my chest. She swallowed hard, a hand in the air. “I—just—”

“You’re not in control and you don’t like it, do you? You call all the shots with Tricky?” That stung the second it left my mouth. A low blow, but I couldn’t fucking help it. I’d seen her with Tricky once in town, laughing, relaxed, a good time. No worries. But with me, now, she felt threatened, preferring to stay locked away in her Tower of Denial. “You tie him up and have your way with him, is that it? That your kink?”

“Fuck you!”

“No, fuck you,” I replied, reigning it in, my voice low. Her eyes widened. She wasn’t sure which way I was headed with this now. I was being honest, that was all that was left. “You once gave me something to believe in, but then you took it away. You threw me in a dark hole and abandoned us, letting us rot.”

“I didn’t.”

“That’s what it felt like. Especially when I was in jail. I needed you. I needed us, so goddamn bad. Everything hurt less, and everything made more sense when we had each other. For you too, I know it. Yeah, it was real difficult a lot of the time, but it was still good. It was real. I want us back. You need us back.”

“Need?” Her eyes blazed, her jaw stiffened. “You have no idea.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“I want you to go.”

“Do you want me, Serena? Do you?” My question, my voice came from the deepest and hollowest part of me. The part that used to be full of her, us.

“I said go.”

She was hiding something. I could smell it, feel it in the slicing shiver up my spine. She stood there resolute. She was the guard dog at the gates, and I was pulling at the padlock, looking through the bars trying to figure out what lay beyond in the dark.

I grabbed a knife from the block on her kitchen counter.

She pivoted. “What the hell are you doing?”

I slashed a cut across the skin on my arm, holding it out to her. Red blood beaded up from the cut. “See?” I held out my arm to her, the knife still tight in my grip. “I bleed. Do you?”

“Finger—”

“We used to bleed for each other. Willingly, unwillingly.” I grabbed her arm, and she jerked back in my hold. “I’ve been bleeding all these years, Lenore. Leaving a trail of blood everywhere I go. What about you? You left a trail?”

“I haven’t stopped bleeding since Med took me. Haven’t stopped!” she said through gritted teeth.

My heart squeezed in my chest at the familiar sound of that particular suffering. It was the most honest thing she’d said all night.

I wanted more.

I dragged the blade against her skin, and she took in a hiss of air, our eyes jumping to the blood rising on her arm. I held her hand in mine, crushing her fingers in my hold as I brought her arm to my mouth and sucked on the blood there, pressing my tongue against the superficial cut in her flesh like only a lover would.

She let out a husky gasp, a moan. She liked it. I pulled her in tighter against me, my grip firm, our lips a breath apart.

“Justin.”

I took her in a deep, hungry kiss, the copper taste of her blood on our tongues. Yes. Our first kiss after all these years should be filled with blood.

Her robe shifted open, and the compass on her chest peeked up at me, sending an ice cold slice right through the heat we’d just generated.

“You still have my compass?” I kissed her again, nipping at her lips with my teeth. “Or did you lose it? Did you throw it away?”

Her shoulders fell, she took in a determined long breath, her lips pursing. Was she trying hard not to let any more emotion loose? “It broke.”

“You were mad at me and you broke it?” I tossed the knife back on the kitchen counter.

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