“Damon stopped me,” he admitted. “Damon begged me to stay calm. He knew we could get you back, but we couldn’t stop him from taking you. I wasn’t calm or cool in that moment. I was white-hot raging angry, and there was a part of me that was angry with you.”
Just like that she was done. She couldn’t handle another second of his anger. Not when they’d gotten so close to something else. He couldn’t help himself. He was made of rage and he’d found a place to put it all. On her.
This had been a terrible mistake. She shouldn’t ever be vulnerable with him because for all his sweet words, they were still at war. He wanted the chance to really wreck her this time.
“Hey, don’t,” he began. “I promised I would be honest and that anger was there, too.”
She nodded. “Of course it was. You’re always angry. I would bet you sat there and wondered if it wasn’t some sex game between me and Levi. Or if I was doing it to get your attention. Like a kid who acts out because she can’t get love any other way.”
His gaze went hard. “I was worried we might have to do it this way.”
“What way? It’s your way. It’s always your way.” It had been for years. The divorce had been his way. The anger had been his way. The inflexibility was his way.
“I assure you losing my brother wasn’t my way.” His hands clenched. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I meant to get you talking.”
“About what? About Levi? Are you trying to trick me into telling you I did it? Is that why you came after me? Did you think you could get the truth out of me better than he could?”
“I never once thought you were guilty,” he replied. “This is why we have to talk. You’re a bundle of emotions but you won’t let them out. If we’re going to get through this, we’ve got to do it together.”
Hearing the word come out of his mouth made her ache inside because that word was a lie coming from him. “Together? We haven’t been together in years, and maybe we never were.”
“I assure you we were together once. I still dream about it at night. It’s the reason I can’t have another relationship.”
She couldn’t do this with him. She’d been stupid to think they could have some sex and she would feel better. There was too much between them. God, the day had been too much. It all threatened to crash in on her. She’d lost it all, and now she was stuck with a man who actively hated her. He might be able to hide it for brief periods of time, but he hated her with as much passion as he’d ever loved her. He would turn on her and she wouldn’t survive it this time.
She tried to move to grab her shirt but he was right there, getting in her space.
He loomed over her, his face gorgeous in the low light of the dungeon. “No. We’re going to talk. I’m not leaving you like this.”
He was in his element. Somehow even without a stitch of clothing on, there was nothing vulnerable about Beckett Kent. He stood there, his stupid attractive feet planted on the ground, his gorgeous cock hard. He belonged here. Like he seemed to belong everywhere. This was his place of power. She didn’t have one. “Fuck you, Beck.”
“Yeah, I’d intended for this to end that way, but if you need to rage a little more, go on. I assure you I can take it.”
He’d already taken so much. She wanted to have it out with him, to let him know the truth about all things, but she couldn’t. So instead she gave him some truth of her own. He wanted honesty? She could give it to him. She moved in, needing him to understand that he couldn’t intimidate her. “You know what I thought when Levi told me he had the drug?”
“No. What did you think?”
He was infuriatingly calm now. It bothered her because she felt white hot. Like a live wire that was twitching and jumping, looking for something to send all that energy through.
“When he told me he had that drug and that he planned to use it on me, I was afraid at first. Then he pointed out that all my pain would go away because I wouldn’t remember who you were. I wouldn’t remember how easy it was to break me because I wouldn’t remember meeting the man who’d done it.”
His eyes flared, the first sign of his emotion. “You think you can forget me? You think some drug can make either of us forget?”
“I think I might like to try.” She didn’t mean it. She would never give up her memories of him. For a brief time he’d been everything to her. He’d been her future, and while they’d been together the world had been a better place. She would cling to that memory until the day she died.
His hand came up, gripping her hair and forcing her head back. “Then maybe I should remind you.”
His mouth came down on hers and all thoughts of leaving fled.
She knew she should be fighting him, but how long had she wanted this? How long had she waited for those gorgeous lips of his to be on hers again? All these years and she’d had a few encounters, one she didn’t remember at all, the one that cost her any hope of a reconciliation—but no one ever moved her the way Beckett Kent did.
She brought her arms up to circle his shoulder and bumped against the bandage on his arm. He hissed. She tried to pull away, but he tugged hard enough on her hair to make her gasp.
“No. Don’t stop me.”
She shook her head. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m always hurt around
