Page 115 of Equilibrium
“Please, K. Just let it go.”
“How did you two meet?” he asked instead, and whether I liked it or not, I had to tell him the truth. “When?” His eyes met mine, the torment evident in them.
“Four years ago. I was with Ava when I first saw him.”
“Dammit, Phee. There are things you don’t know. Things that you should know, and they involve Storm.”
Which things?
“That wasn’t the first time you met him, baby. You met Storm long before that.”
What? How?
“What are you talking about? I’d never even seen him before that day. And before you even think about it, I never cheated. Unlike you,” I had to add.
“That’s not fair.”
“No, you know what wasn’t fair?” I pushed his chest. “Finding my boyfriend, no wait, my fiancé, fucking somebody else. That’s what wasn’t fair. Me meeting Storm, that was nothing compared to what you did.”
“Ophelia—”
“No! You have no right, Kieran! You have no idea the hell I went through after your brothers decided that I was guilty. Where were you, Kieran? Where the fuck were you while I was screaming for someone to save me? Where was the man I wanted to marry at that point? You were probably fucking some random slut while the chains in that basement kept cutting off the circulation in my wrists.”
“Stop it, Phee.” He tried taking a hold of my arms, but I wasn’t having it. The memories of everything that happened, seeing him with her, hearing them and their accusations, it was all bubbling up.
Emotions were tricky, and I kept mine hidden for way too long. I guess that it was time for all of it to come out.
My pain.
The betrayal I felt.
Forgiving him wasn’t enough, but this volcanic eruption in my chest had to go out in some way.
“Where were you?” I screamed, my throat burning from exertion.
“Phee—”
“Tell me, goddammit!”
But he didn’t tell me. His lips landed on mine, and he gripped my hair, holding me in place, one hand wrapped around my neck, cutting off my air supply.
Vicious.
This was what I needed. Vicious Kieran.
He slammed my body into the wall and kept up with the punishing kisses. This was a battle. It always was a battle with the two of us.
I never wanted to give him the power over me and he never wanted to admit that the two of us were all sorts of wrong for each other.
The man that was meant for me, the man that messed up was probably already looking for me, and Kieran wasn’t him.
“Is this what you want, birdy?” He bit my jaw. “Pain?”
“Yes.” I bit his neck as soon as he moved slightly back. “I want pain, because if there is pain, everything in here,” I pointed to my head, “stops screaming. And I need it to fucking stop.”
This was the last time. I kept repeating in my head that this last time had to count.
By letting him do this, I almost forgot the feel of Storm’s lips on mine. I almost forgot the feeling of that knife on my thigh and his fingers inside of me.
