His hands tightened around my arms and he shook me a bit. “If I’m the one who walked away, then why haven’t I been able to go a day without thinking of you?” he barked. “If I’m the one who ended us, why can’t I fuck another woman without imagining your face on her body?”
That stung.
I knew Gage was too much of an alpha male to go ten years without sleeping with another woman, but I didn’t want to hear about it. Granted, I hadn’t kept my legs closed these past ten years, but this was all about perception. He had blocked me from his life.
He had.
So, while the sex had been unfulfilling, I still never felt guilty over it. Sure, I had felt guilty that I couldn’t enjoy as much as I had led my partner to believe, but I never felt guilty for trying to move on, even if I knew it would be near to impossible. My celibacy, now, was out of unfulfillment, not because of Gage Evans.
And because I didn’t want to be the only one dancing on the edges of this hell alone, I got petty and vindictive. “Trust me when I tell you that youarethe one who ended it. If you hadn’t, I would never have been able to move on and get underneath the next guy.”
Gage’s hand snaked out and circled my neck and squeezed. Did I think he was capable of strangling me to death? Yes. Did I think he would? I wasn’t sure. Was I scared that he would? No. Was I losing my mind, as well as this argument? Yes.
Yes, I was.
His face was a magnificent picture of masculine rage as he seethed, “You dare mention the men you’ve slept with to me?”
“Because you think I’d want to hear about the womenyou’veslept with?” I fired back. “You gave me up!” I screamed.“Yougave me to them!”
Gage’s other hand crawled up in my hair, tangling it a painful grip, before his mouth slammed down on mine. It wasn’t tender or particularly loving.
It was violence unleashed.
I cried out when his teeth sank into my bottom lip and copper flooded my mouth. I couldn’t speak for the past ten years, but the Gage I had known in high school had always been a biter. He loved leaving his mark and he had made them with his teeth often. If his hands hadn’t been bruising my flesh, his teeth had been tearing into it.
When he pulled back, his lips were painted red, and his snarl was feral. “You ever mention another man to me, and I will fuckingdestroyyou,” he threatened. Little did he know, it was an empty threat. He already destroyed me ten years ago.
“Then don’t throw the other women you’ve fucked in my face,” I countered, not caring that it made me sound like a jealous harpy. Because I was jealous. Gage was never supposed to have known another woman, just like I was never to have known another man. We were supposed to have been each other’s one and only.
I hated that we weren’t.
“Oh, baby,” he cooed evilly. “The only woman I have ever fucked wasyou.”
“Gage-”
“They were warm bodies, but it was your face I saw every damn time,” he continued. “I couldn’t get my dick hard unless I imagined they were you. But because Iknewthey weren’t, I could only take those experiences so far.No onehas ever replaced you, and I know, now, that no one ever will.”
We had just demanded denial from one another, but we were doing just the opposite. “I fucked them hoping I’d find another you,” I told him honestly. “But I still haven’t.”
His fist tightened in my hair. “Right here. Right now, Mystic. In this moment,only,will you ever have a choice with me. Make it,” he demanded.
Did that mean he believed me? Did that mean he forgave what he had believed had been my transgressions against him? More importantly, could I do this and not fall down the dark, dangerous rabbit hole that was Gage Evans? Could I walk away a second time? Would I let him walk away?
I stared into his dark blue eyes and saw everything that was wrong with him. I also saw everything that was wrong with me reflected in them.
My body screamed for him. It screamed for everything I knew he was capable of giving to me. It screamed for fuckingrelease. It screamed for the anticipation of the man he was now versus the boy he had been. I knew what a teenage Gage could do, I had no idea what a grownup Gage could unleash.
My mind was telling me I was a fool. It was telling me sex was not the answer. It was telling me I needed to distance myself from the situation and give both me and Gage time to absorb the truth of our past finally coming out. It told me all wasn’t forgiven and there was a bigger fallout from all of this.
It told me to fuckingrun.
My heart, though…my heart was telling me I was exactly where I should have been all along. I was in Gage’s sadistic embrace, and there was nowhere else I should be.
Nowhere else I belonged.
Everything inside of me was at war and I didn’t know what the right choice was. I felt the answers yes and no were both equally damning.
The internal battle was real. But, at the end of it all, there was one solid truth. In ten years, I’ve yet to meet a man who’s made me feel even an ounce of what Gage Evans makes me feel. All these years without him, and my feelings for him still feel like a tornado that was never meant to be controlled.
