“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” His eyes glow. “But I guess it does take one to know one.”
My insides plummet. Skittering to my stomach like he’s shoved a sword sharpened on both ends straight through me.
He has no idea,notme.
The worry lines on his face deepen, but he hasn’t blinked once. It doesn’t intimidate me. You can’t intimidate what you break because it’s already separated from being whole ever again.
“You’re terrible for me.”
“I am terrible for you,” he agrees, and it burns like poison down my throat.
“Let me go then.”
“The door’s right behind you.”
My chin levels out. That’s not what I mean. “Drop the act. You know what I’m saying.”
If Cole is the one holding the gun, then I’m the bullet. Together we’re a deadly combination of ruin and injustice.
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
Our eyes filled with equal parts rage that can’t break the other’s.
Iceman’s teeth glint. Sharpening to deadly points as they show. “Because I’m selfish, Aurora. You make me selfish, crazed, delusional. Reckless.I can never think clearly when it involves you.”
A dark chuckle leaves his mouth at my expression. I’ve heard this all before, but he isn’t done.
“Wanna know something else? I make these rash decisions because I like it, because it’s who I am, and I won’t deny that sometimes I do it because I like to see how they affect you. Firing you off, like when you came in blazing with a storm behind your eyes, is exciting.”
My ribs swell. The intensity of his truth pinning me to the spot.
“I make you insane?”
“Aren’t you listening?Youare my sanity.” Blue eyes penetrating like a shard of glass straight to my soul. Shadowing over me with his height, his weight… his everything.
Cole’s words as brutal as they are unhinged.
“I push, you pull. You run; I chase. You hurt;I bleed. That’s what we do, who we are.” The truth radiates, hanging from his mouth. His tone grim, eyes matching the blackness of his hair.
I don’t remember when my hands latched on to his jersey but my mouth parts in surprise when I look down. His clasp around mine before pulling them off. Putting more distance between us.
“I bleed for you, Princess.”
The words like a hero to kryptonite.
Cole makes me question everything. Just when I think I have a grasp on what I feel, he jumbles my thoughts. Rearranging them to the point of insanity.
My breathing turns chopped.I bleed for you.
He grew up knowing he’d have a voice and uses it well. I didn’t find mine until I needed it to survive. If giving orders is his weapon, then I’m the shield. Using what I have to make it another day.
I want to let him back in, to give in to this connection, same as I once had before, but something holds me back. Even after all he’s said, something crushes, locking its hold around me, not willing to give myself over.
At least not in the way he wants or needs.
It’s like we’re both breathing but on two separate wavelengths. The pull, the attraction is there, but something inside won’t tug past that.