“I can’t,” I said, pressing my eyes shut tightly.
“Look at me, Pup,” he demanded again. “I’m not letting you go until you do.”
“This isn’t fair!” I shouted, struggling to free myself from his grip. “I don’t want to look at you! I just want you to let me fucking go!” When I finally wrangled my hand from his grip, I raised it in the air. My palm was about to make contact with King’s face when he caught my wrist midair.
“Oh, Pup,” he said, his deep voice rumbled with something sinister. He leaned down until his face was level with my own. I felt his cool breath across my check when he said, “You’re going to pay for that.” I looked up at him through my lashes just as he lifted me in the air by my waist and tossed me up into the air. I landed on my ass with a splash as I sunk underwater. I didn’t even have a chance to come back up for air when strong arms grabbed me under my arms, hauling me back up into the night air.
I sputtered, spitting out water, wiping my eyes. The salt water burned my nostrils. “What the fuck!” I shouted.
King wiped my matted hair from my forehead. Again he tipped my chin up to him. “No look at me or you’re going back in.”
“Fuck you,” I spat. King went to throw me again, but this time, I fought against him so strongly, he couldn’t lift me up so instead he held me tight and dove into the water, dragging me under with him.
When he resurfaced with me still in his arms, in the shoulder deep water, he dug his fingers into my hips. “This shit was so much fucking easier when you were afraid of me.”
I’m not afraid of you anymore, I’m only afraid of a life without you.
And he had gone and thrown it all away.
And this was about more than being angry with him.
I was hurt.
I decided to open my eyes and get it over with. I told myself that I wasn’t going to feel anything. That I would look at him and still be able to walk away.
It’s still a lie even if you’re only telling it to yourself.
Slowly and begrudgingly, I opened my eyes and when they locked onto his my breath hitched in my throat.
I told myself that it was the heat lightning flashing across the sky, charging the air around us. I told myself that it was because we were standing in the thick line of light that the full moon painted across the water that was making me want to reach out and touch the soft glow of his colorfully tattooed skin.
Because it most certainly wasn’t the way I could practically see the flames dancing in King’s burning gaze as it penetrated my fucking soul. It couldn’t have been the way his hard lines of muscle rose and fell with his quick breaths, stretching the fabric of his already tight wife-beater across his chest.
Panting. He was panting.
We stood like that for what seemed like an eternity, daring the other to make the first move, frozen in the moment. I didn’t feel one thing for him.
I felt everything.
Anger, confusion, love…lust, and it all swam around us in the water as we stared each other down.
The sky opened up. A thunder clap boomed so loud and deep I felt it in my chest. The surface of the water rippled, and them came the rain, cold and relentless. Every drop sent the river water splashing back up at us, but it still wasn’t enough to interrupt the staring contest that was so much more than just two sets of eyes staring at each other, it was a challenge. A warning.
A power struggle.
“You could have told me—” I started to argue again, fully prepared to keep up the fight. I needed it. It’d been too long since we had a true blow out, not since the night of the carnival and I craved the back and forth between us that needed to happen.
The night I gave him my heart.
“No,” he barked. “I couldn’t have told you.” He raised his voice over mine, pulling me so close, that I could feel he was as affected by me as I was by him. He was hard, thick and ready against my thigh. And like the stupid girl I am, my knees trembled and started to buckle.
“Why?” I spat. It was hard to concentrate on our words when I knew what was going on just beneath the surface. The rain was pouring down so hard it muffled our voices as if we were talking underwater. “Why couldn’t you?”
“Because I couldn’t risk it! If you knew the truth, you would’ve… I just couldn’t risk it,” King said.
“Risk what? What couldn’t you risk?” I prodded.
“Losing you!” He boomed. “I couldn’t risk losing you!” King wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed his erection against the soft spot between my legs that was reacting to his every word, his every touch. A place that craved him almost as much as my heart did.