“Your rabbit hole is this, these,” he says, tapping at the metallic letters on the cover. He swallows and his throat bobs. “That’s why you read so much; you can be any character you want in a book.”
The look he was giving me now making me question everything. He was letting me see all of him in the darkness of this abandoned room. He wasn’t guarded or restrained, just Cole.
Bare. The most vulnerable I’d ever seen him.
“It’s how I escape,” I whisper on a shaky breath as my chin quivered.
“I know,” he answers as softly.
He draws a sigh that almost sounds painful. “Know what I do?”
“Swear a bunch and then eat a whole jar of peanut butter,” I joke.
His shoulders relax as he throws his head back in a laugh. It’s light, airy, and it makes me feel gooey inside.
“I like to hit things,” he admits after a moment, flinching. “Numbs the thoughts in my head.”
A haze coats his eyes then. A gloominess setting in place of his earlier amusement. The sadness makes my heart ache.
Cole’s gaze grows heavy, gulping. “…Like the one that’s been stuck there since I found my mom on the bathroom floor in a pool of her own blood.”
His upper lip thinning out when I wince. This wasn’t easy for him. Not an easy topic for anyone, I’m sure. The tension radiating off him like a sharpened blade. Iceman’s words slicing straight down my windpipe.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask on a shaky breath.
I grab for his hand, and he lets me. His thumb brushing along my skin. Slow and tender.
“You’re not the only one who has things they’re ashamed of.” Responding with no tact at all, even though his face stayed drawn. “This world wronged me too. Money ripped the one person who cared about me from my life.”
My lips part the smallest amount as I fought to keep my expression neutral. Cole’s pupils dilated, heating as they watched the movement. His exhale shaky when he blinks, clearing his head.
“The pressure of being a Kellet got to her and eventually…” He squeezes my hand like he needed the courage to say the next part. “She couldn’t take it anymore.”
I feel his pain as if it were my own. We’d both been hurt by this world.
Cole knew my darkest secret and now I knew his. Each of us bearing a part of our burdened soles with the other. Entrusting the other enough to unmask them. The blackness unveiled.
“People so badly want what I was born into not understanding the poison that comes with the title,” he snarls, snapping his teeth together. “My world corrupts people. It tears you apart until there’s nothing left,” he confesses.
His eyes shine as his scowl deepens. My pulse flutters against my ribs. He looks like he wants to say something else but decides against it. Squeezing my hand once more before letting go completely.
They turn into liquefied gems when I don’t hide my disappointment.
I liked when Cole touched me. It felt too right like that’s how it should always be. He looks at me like I was his salvation. Precious and undamaged even though I was the opposite.
Cole made me dizzy and lightheaded in the best ways. A sharp pain shoots through my chest, in the next instant and he frowns. His hand finding my cheek. I fall into it automatically.
I couldn’t pinpoint an exact spot when things started to change. Deep down I knew it was something that always had been rooted between us. The pair of us were too stubborn to admit it for what it was.
“What are we?” I ask, putting my heart out on the line. Giving him one last chance to admit to what I knew he was too willful to see. Blinded by his own steadfastness.
His face is a mixture of perplexity and confusion.
The man my heart craved had a voice built on the pride of ruling others. Yet around me, he’d been mute more times than I could count.
I knew what I wanted, and I couldn’t go back now. I had been wrong in the beginning. I needed Cole to tell me he wanted us as badly as he needed regulation and subjection.
He looks the most shaken I’ve seen him when I step out of his touch. I missed the warmth already, but I know what I needed to do.