Page 48 of Hate Me Like You Do

Her chin tips up and the softest kiss presses to my lower lip. I flinch as pain shoots through me at the feel of her affection. She kisses the wound again and energy soars through my chest so hard that I don’t feel the pain this time as she slides her tongue across my lips and kisses me so deep that I thrust against the heat at the center of her thin night shorts.

DO NOT FUCK VIOLET DEMURE.

The rule flashes through my mind but when her small hand pushes between us, rubbing fully over my jeans and across the hardness of my cock, the rules and promises I once made Knox Reyes no longer exist.

Her wrist rolls faster, her tongue flicking against mine and consuming me with every single thing she does. The demanding feeling inside me builds and builds and builds and just as I groan against her, she slaps her palm hard against my throbbing erection.

I go down fast, falling to my knees as if Knox just slammed his fist into my face all over again.

And she stands above me, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she looks at me with hooded, hateful eyes.

“Never show your weakness, Landon,” she rasps out.

She walks away like nothing ever happened, like she didn’t just leave me lying at her feet. The bathroom door closes behind her with a quiet click.

All too quick I try to swallow down the emotion that’s burning in the back of my throat. She doesn’t know it, but she is my weakness.

Thirteen

Knox

Drinking whiskey always somehow feels like a punishment, one I’m quick to give myself. Each sip leaves me cringing as it makes my mouth somehow feel dryer and dryer each time. The burn and the taste alone should be enough for me to learn that I don’t like it.

But I do it anyway. Usually to block out the things I don’t want to think about.

Like my father.

Like myself.

Like Violet.

I suck down another gulp straight from the bottle I found in my father’s desk drawer. His desk is where I find the strong stuff. This room is where I find any solitude these days.

My hand grips the bottle so rough I wonder if I could break the glass as I glower down at the image of my father and I fishing when I was five years old. Flesh along my knuckles is still red, raw, and speckled with blood.

I crossed the line today. Today the side of me I wish didn’t exist came to life. If Reed hadn’t intervened would I have stopped?

Would I have killed Landon without a second thought?

I take another drink. Enough of this and tomorrow I won’t need to worry about remembering today and the person I am.

Some people are a product of their environment.

And I am definitely a product of my environment. I had a twin brother once. And he was good. A good kid.

What I am, is exactly what Ronan Reyes created me to be.

An image. A cruel reflection of himself.

A fucked up kid with fucked up thoughts that I’ll never show the world.

Ahead of me the office door cracks open a bit, Violet’s eyebrows are arching up and a smug look has her lips twitching at the corners. Her cheeks are rosy, her lips a berry red as if she just drank blood.

Or maybe something less sinister like wine.

My body responds to her presence in a strange way. I’ve never really cared what someone felt or what they might be thinking.

But Violet Demure is my opposite in every way.

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