I had never felt this way.
The weight of her felt like a thousand sins stacked on my chest. Warm. Fragile. Unforgivingly mine. She slept soundly, her breaths soft and steady against my skin, as though I hadn’t just destroyed her a hundred times over. As though I wasn’t the very thing that should have haunted her dreams.
My fingers moved on their own like the man things had another mind, tracing the curve of her delicate shoulder and the line of her seductive collarbone. Such delicate body for a soul so maddeningly defiant. She was chaos wrapped in quiet like a fucking storm in stillness, and I hated her for it. Hated how she disarmed me without even trying, how she peeled me open and made me feel-feel-things I’d spent my life burying six feet under.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath. Her words still echoed in my head, carving trenches into a mind that had no room for guilt. ‘You’ve already had me…even the pieces you broke.’
Broke? No. I obliterated her. Crushed her into dust and wore her destruction like a goddamn crown.
And still, she slept. In my arms. Like I wasn’t the hell she was trapped in.
It was infuriating how her lashes casted delicate shadows on her cheeks, her trembling lips slightly parted, tempting me with their softness. She looked sinful in her innocence, the curve of her neck begging for my mouth, her scent-a mix of something sweet and sharp-clawing at the edges of my sanity.
I wanted to taste her again. Mark her. Ruin her so completely that no one, not even herself, could put her back together.
“Fucking hell.” My fingers curled into a fist and the urge to touch her overpowered and grotesque. This wasn’t attraction. This wasn’t obsession. It was something worse-deeper than oceans, hotter than hell, more consuming than death.
And it was killing me.
I stood abruptly and the motion jolted her slightly. She murmured something in her sleep and her body instinctively seek mine. Small hands rose, reached for me. My chest tightened as I stepped back, desperate to put space between us. It didn’t help. She was everywhere-her scent, her warmth, the memory of her tears and the feel of her fists pounding uselessly against me.
I made it to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me with more force than necessary. My reflection in the mirror stopped me cold.
Who the fuck was this man staring back at me?
Eyes dark with something primal, lips bruised and bitten, jaw clenched tight enough to crack. I leaned forward, gripping the sink as I studied the pathetic creature in the glass.
Men like me don’t feel. Men like me destroy. We take. We burn. We don’t gather the broken pieces, we scatter them further.
But her… She wasn’t just a piece of glass beneath my boot. She was a shard lodged in my throat, cutting deeper every time I swallowed. And those words-those fucking words-were poison.
“You already have. You’ve owned every piece of me-even the pieces you broke.”
I splashed water on my face and the cold doing nothing to douse the inferno raging inside me. My breaths came sharp, uneven. She was getting under my skin in ways no one ever had.
It was vile. Unacceptable.
And yet, I wanted more.
More of her tears, her screams, her goddamn defiance. I wanted to devour her, to own her completely-not just her body, but every thought, every breath, every beat of her heart.
I wanted to ruin her, yes. But I also wanted to hold her together. To be the only one allowed to touch her shattered pieces.
And yet, the image of her wouldn’t leave me.
The way her lips trembled when she cried. The way her body fit against mine like it was made for this-made for me. Even in her sleep, she looked like temptation incarnate, her skin glowing faintly in the moonlight. Lewdly beautiful, like something out of a fever dream.
I closed my eyes, but it didn’t help. All I could see was her.
Her lips. Her tears. Her fire.
And the realization hit me like a freight train.
This wasn’t control.
This wasn’t power.
This was fucking madness.
I leaned over the sink, gripping its edge until my knuckles turned white. My chest heaved and my mind a chaotic mess of lust, rage, and something worse-something I couldn’t name.
She was inside me now, running through my veins like venom, tainting everything I was.
And the delicious part?
I didn’t want it to stop.
Fuck I must be losing my mind cause there was no way I’d… feel… that damn emotion.
“Damnit!” I cursed under my breath before walking into the room and grabbed the pack of cigarettes, pulling one free with shaking fingers. I supressed the urge to slam the balcony door instead I shut it behind me. She wouldn’t feel the cold. She never would-because I carried enough of it for both of us.
The night was sharp, the kind of chill that bit into your skin and made you bleed stars. I lit the cigarette and the flame caught with a flicker of rebelliousness, much like her. A deep inhale. Smoke filled my lungs, burning like her goddamn name carved into my chest.
I stared at the horizon where the damn lake met the pyre of ice glaciers. Poetic, wasn’t it? The devil himself standing on a ledge, smoking like the world didn’t already stink of his sins.
The smoke curled around me instantly.
You don’t see me. You don’t touch me the way I need to be touched.
I scoffed crushing the cigarette in my fingers. Touch you? Hell, if I touched you the way I wanted to, there’d be nothing left of you but ashes.
The thought burned hotter than the cigarette and a maddening mixture of desire and frustration tore at my chest. My hand trembled for fuck’s sake as I crushed the cigarette against the balcony rail. But the fucking blaze didn’t stop. If anything, it rushed, from my chest to my groin.
I needed clarity. Or maybe I just needed distraction. Something to pull me out of the suffocating gravity of her. My mind grasped at threads and then it landed on Kyle. He’d piss me off, sure, but maybe that’s exactly what I needed.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, dialing his number before my fucking sanity could intervene. One ring. Two. And then his groggy, exasperated voice answered.
“Jesus,” Kyle’s voice came through the line, thick with sleep. There was a pause, the sound of fumbling, then a low groan. “It’s three in the morning. Who got fever this time?”
“You awake now?” I asked dryly, flicking the ash from my cigarette and ignoring his comment.
“Awake enough,” he muttered. “What’s so urgent? Did you lose your temper and bury someone important this time?”
I ignored his jab and the ember of the cigarette glowing brighter as I inhaled. “If you had someone in your arms-someone you couldn’t live without-and they told you you’d already destroyed them… what the hell would you do?”
There was a beat of silence. Then Kyle let out a sharp exhale. “You called me for this? At this ungodly hour?” His voice was even, but the subtle undertone of disbelief was there. “With all due respect, I don’t think existential crises are in my job description. I’m not being paid enough to be your therapist.”
“Answer the damn question, Asshole.”
After a beat of silence, he grumbled. “Well, I wouldn’t call my second-in-command in the dead of night to have a heart-to-heart.”
“This isn’t a joke,” I growled.
“Of course not,” Kyle replied smoothly. “Because calling me to talk about feelings is completely rational behaviour for you.”
“Kyle.” My voice dropped to a dangerous whisper, the kind that would have made anyone else piss themselves. “You have three seconds to give me a straight answer, or I’ll make sure you regret every second you wasted sleeping.”
He sighed. “If I had someone like that? I’d fuck them into oblivion and deal with the consequences later.”
The cigarette burned hot between my fingers, his words lodging somewhere deep and festering. I exhaled sharply, staring out into the inky darkness beyond the skies. “You’re useless.”
“Noted,” Kyle said lightly. “Anything else, or may I return to my apparently insignificant slumber?”
“Keep your phone on,” I barked before ending the call, pressing the button harder than necessary.
The silence that followed was deafening. I took another drag of the cigarette.
I’d fuck them into oblivion and deal with the consequences later.
If only it were that easy. If only touching her didn’t feel like tearing myself apart with every breath.
I glanced back at the door and the faint outline of her form still visible through the dark. She lay there, peaceful, untouched by the chaos I’d unleashed within myself.
You don’t see me.
But she was wrong. She didn’t see herself. Didn’t see how she set fire to the darkest corners of my soul, how her very existence was both salvation and damnation.
And me? I was the cigarette burning down to ash between my fingers.
I crushed the cigarette against the railing. My hand hovered over the pack in my pocket, but I didn’t light another. Instead, I stood there, staring at the horizon.
Because no matter how much I burned, the fire in me would never be enough to touch the stars she was made of.