Page 45 of Temptation
See, what did I tell you? She doesn’t want you. She can’t even look at you. The demon grinned.
A growl tore from my chest and I ripped myself away from her, going as far away as my heart would allow me. I leaned over the kitchen counter, looking at the outside. Winter was descending over Winworth, and the first snow was near.
I could feel it in the air. Its freezing hands were slowly crawling toward our town, and with that, toward my heart. My eyes zeroed in on the blood slowly trickling from my knuckles, but I didn’t want her touch right now. I deserved the pain because that’s what I gave her.
I would bleed for her. I would die for her, kill, maim, destroy. I would burn the entire world for her, but she didn’t want me. I wasn’t the one her eyes sought in a room full of people. I was not her favorite hello and the hardest goodbye.
It was him.
It was always him.
Always somebody else who was more important than me. More significant because her heart never belonged to me. She would never call my name, never look at me with tenderness; at least not anymore. Not after I destroyed her world in one night, even though I never wanted this life for her.
“Dylan,” she whispered as she placed her hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shake her off. I wanted her gone and near at the same time. I wanted to hug her, to kiss her, to show her how much I loved her. How much my heart bled for her.
But hers would never bleed for me.
It already belonged to somebody else.
“Don’t,” I mumbled. “Please, Little One. Please don’t.”Don’t touch me, I wanted to say.Don’t show me affection. Don’t lie with your touch.
Don’t lie with your eyes.
“Dylan,” she whimpered. “Please turn around.”
“I can’t,” I bit out. “I can’t, Skylar. I can’t look at you.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “Just this time. Just turn around.”
I ground my teeth, focusing on the blood now covering the counter. Something snapped inside of me, something that would always answer her even when my mind didn’t want to, and I turned around.
Tears were falling freely down her cheeks, smudging already destroyed makeup. She looked like a demon—my demon, and I would rather burn with her than be without her.
She held a cloth in her hand, and with careful movements, she took my hand in hers again, and pressed the cloth against my knuckles.
“I was with the guys last night,” she murmured, looking down at my hand. “Nothing happened, I didn’t… I didn’t do anything, but I wanted to.” She looked up at me. “I wanted to forget that night ever happened. I wanted to run far away from here, from you, but something held me back.”
I shuddered at her touch, at the softness with which she spoke. She was unraveling me, piece by piece. I wanted to show her the monster that night; I wanted to show them the monster they created because that’s what was expected from me, but I never wanted to scare her.
“You held me back,” she sobbed. “You held me back and I’m not sure how I feel about that. You and the other things I still want to do here, but I’m not sure if you would understand, Dylan. I’m not sure if you could ever understand, because you belong to them.”
“No!” I started shaking my head and with the other still-intact hand, I grabbed the side of her face, tangling my fingers in her hair. “I’m not theirs. I’m not.”
“Then how do you explain everything you did? How do you explain the monster I saw hiding in your eyes?”
“No, no, no.” I leaned down and pressed my lips against her cold forehead. “I’m not theirs, Sky. I will never be theirs because I always belonged to you. Maybe it wasn’t in this way, but my heart always belonged to you.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head and stepped away from me, the blood-drenched cloth falling to the floor. “I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you because you betrayed me, Dylan. You betrayed me and you gave me this.” She lifted the sleeve of her shirt and showed the inner part of her forearm, and that godforsaken symbol carved into her skin. “You did this!”
“I didn’t!” I seethed. “I didn’t do that. I would never do that to you.”
“Then how do you explain the mask? How do you explain that whoever did this knew every single corner of our house?”
“It wasn’t me,” I reiterated. “I am begging you to believe me. That wasn’t me. I’m trying to figure out who it was because it wasn’t me.”
I closed the distance between the two of us, took a hold of her hands in mine, and pressed them to my chest.
“Do you feel that? Can you feel my heart, Little One? Can you feel the increased rhythm? Can you feel that losing you would destroy me?”
