Page 67 of Perfect Sin
That was the wrong question to ask. His arm whips out and he backhands me across the face. “He’s nothing. Forget him. You don’t belong with him.”
“You’re dead,” I insist. “I killed you.” I know I did. I watched as one of the FBI agents laid a sheet over his lifeless body. I can still feel the weight of the knife in my hand before I launched it at him.
He traces a scar by his eye with his finger. “You tried. It didn’t stick.”
I shake my head over and over. “No, you’re dead.”
“If that’s true, then you’re going to join me, because we are going to be together.”
This time there’s no belt laden with knives. My head is still swimming from the lack of oxygen, which makes it hard to physically defend myself.
I dig deep and scream. I scream for the pain he’s put me through for years. Scream for every touch that made my skin crawl and my stomach turn. I scream praying this time someone loves me enough to come to my rescue.
21
Breaking Together
Sin
Raven has been holedup in our room for a couple of hours. I’m terrified to go in there and continue the clusterfuck of a conversation we had earlier. I can’t go in there, but I also can’t peel my eyes away from the hallway in case she decides to pack her things and try to leave. Instead, I think over all the ways I can convince her to stay if she decides she’s ready to leave.
My train of thought comes to a screeching halt when Raven’s scream echoes through the house. I don’t hesitate. In seconds I’m on my feet and running down the hallway. I throw open the door prepared to fight an intruder, but no one is in the room other than Raven.
She thrashes in the bed, the blankets tangled around her body while she fights something I can’t see. I’m no stranger to nightmares, but I’ve never seen her have one before.
Sitting on the bed next to her I try to wake her as gently as possible. “Raven, princess, wake up,” I whisper. I brush her hair back from her face, but this only causes her to thrash around more.
“Raven,” I say louder this time and shake her shoulders.
She whimpers and tries to get away from me. I don’t know what to do to help her. “Please, baby, wake up. Come back to me,” I beg her.
Her eyes flutter open, and she looks around, eyes wild. “Sin?”
“I’m here, princess. You’re safe. It was a nightmare.”
Her eyes still search the room, and her hands go to her throat. “It felt so real,” she murmurs.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Kyle was here. He choked me, and I felt like I was back in school with no one there to save me,” she whispers.
“What can I do?” I ask helplessly.
“Hold me?”
The uncertainty in her voice slays me. It’s such a simple request, something a wife shouldn’t fear asking of her husband, and yet I’ve made her feel like I won’t be there for her.
My insecurity has managed to do what so many others have been trying to do since we met, drive us apart. I vow to myself to do better. Somehow I must face the demons inside of me to keep them from hurting her.
Letting her go doesn’t feel like the right thing to do anymore. It isn’t the best thing for her, not if it makes her feel so miserably alone.
“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” she mumbles.
Getting lost in my head made me hesitate a moment too long. Enough for her to misread what I’m thinking. “There is nowhere on this earth I’d rather be than pressed up against you,” I reassure her.
I kick off my shoes and slide under the covers next to her. My hand slips around her stomach and I pull her flush against me.
A ragged breath shudders from her. “I need you to trust me,” she whispers. “If you don’t then you can’t possibly understand how deep my love for you goes. You keep telling me I’m your everything, that love is too weak of a word for what I am to you. Maybe I’m using the wrong words to let you know it’s the same for me. Turning to someone else, anyone else, isn’t possible. You’re like air for me. I can’t breathe without you.”