Breach (18 page)

Broken.

His pacing resumed
, and I heard him mumbling, but I couldn’t make out the words. For a brief moment, I feared for his sanity. His chest expanded in deep hard breaths. I couldn’t tell what emotion would face me as they were all present, and the anxiety in the room continued to grow. He turned and stopped in front of me. His nostrils flared, his eyes wide, and I took an involuntary small step back, my body bending away from him. His gaze ran up and down my body, taking me in.

“You think being a federal prosecutor is great. You work hard to put heinous criminals away, hopefully for good. You don’t think about the repercu
ssions. About how the ones you’re prosecuting or their families may be angry with you and want revenge for you trying to uphold the law and make people safe. You don’t think about how someone will try to take your life because they blame you for ruining their life or their loved ones. They don’t care who else gets hurt in their quest to get to you. Sometimes they even threaten them to scare you.” His manic pacing resumed.

After a moment, he headed to the living room and sat down on the couch.
His eyes were fixed on the fireplace, his leg bouncing at a furious pace. He picked up a sandstone coaster from the coffee table and twirled it in his hand.

I moved to stand ne
ar him, remaining silent so he would continue. A snarl ripped through his chest as his arm pulled back and he chucked the coaster into the fireplace. It fractured, sending dust and debris around the room.

“I was cocky. I thought no
thing and no one could touch me. I was very wrong.” His eyes were glassy and his voice wooden.

The weight of all his words dropped me to the ground in front of him. A
tear escaped and landed on the carpet between us. There was more, so much more he was omitting.

“I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t handle i
t, not after... I tried, I did. I failed miserably when not even a month back in, I exploded in the court room.”

His eyes met mine. H
is look was pleading, begging me for understanding.

“But you’re not
a prosecutor anymore,” I observed.

“Do you think that matters, Lila?” he asked.
“This condo? It isn’t even under my name. Because I’m still alive.”

There was a shift
, and calmness took hold of him. It was eerie, and I assumed it was from years of hiding from everyone. He just flipped the switch and that was it. Topic ended.

His
gaze bored into mine, and I felt oddly exposed. It was like he was opening me up, seeing everything that I was…or wasn’t.

“Why are
you
so empty?” he asked.

I stared at him, stunned.

“I can see it as clear as day. It’s one of the many things that drew me to you. You’re empty. You wear a mask to hide it, to make yourself seem somewhat normal, but your face… Do you know how expressionless it is when you think no one is looking? I provoke you to get some kind of reaction, like you provoke me to feel. Have you ever been happy?”

I was bombarded with question after question, and
my anxiety started clawing its way through my being.

“Is that why you chose law? Co
ntracts in general, because it’s cold with precise guidelines? The people at the office don’t see it. They think you’re frigid, but I know you have a loving soul. The problem is you were never shown love, right? That’s very cruel, to grow up without love,” he stated with a cool tone, his eyebrow quirked in curiosity.

“Shut up!”
I jumped to my feet, my fists clenched at my sides, my eyes blazing. I felt like a cat; the hackles standing on my neck, baring my teeth as I hissed. It was like he was poking me with a stick, and I wanted to swat at him to get him to stop.

He stood and walked
over to stand directly in front of me. “Why? Because you don’t want someone to point out what you’re lacking? That’s why things failed with you and Andrew, isn’t it? He couldn’t take your darkness, couldn’t fill your void. He seems like the type to want to fix something that’s broken.”

“Shut up, shut up,
shut up!” I screamed, my fists beating against his chest.

He needed to stop, I needed him to stop. How? How did
he know what no one else knew?

I can’t stand to look at you.

No one will ever want you. No one will ever love you.

I hate you.  I never wanted you. I was dumped with you.

You. Are. Nothing.

“Please, it hurts!”
I moaned, my heart shredding inside me.

“Why?”

“Because I was never wanted, I was never good enough, never smart enough, never loved! He
hated
me; I was in the way of his happiness, shackled to him.”

Their words were running through my mind on a loop. All of the things the
y had said to me my whole life.

I wish you’d never been born.

No one wants you here, you should just leave.

“He hated t
hat my mother died and forced me upon him: a child he never wanted from a woman he knew for a day. The things he said, the looks he gave…so many times, he wouldn’t even give me that. It hurt more than when he smacked me or grabbed me and yelled. Those were the only times he ever touched me. He was my father. He was supposed to love me.
Protect
me!”  My chest felt like it was ripping as I spilled my darkest secrets, showing him just how much I was lacking.

His face was pale, but there
was no abhorrent look of pity—more like an expression of understanding and empathy. So, I took a deep breath and braced myself so I could continue on.

“
My stepmother, she ignored me. Oh, God…the nasty things she would say to bring me down. She knew he wouldn’t stop her; he encouraged her. Then there was Adam…” I paused, but wasn’t sure I could find the words to describe him. I shivered as I envisioned him, sneering at me. My whole body shook with violent vibrations.

“He took high advantage of being able to say and do w
hatever he wanted. He hated it when I moved in, hated his beloved stepfather bringing him a sister, and made it his personal mission to make me the most alienated and bullied kid in school. I kept my head down, my mouth shut, and prayed for someone to see me. For someone to love me… I still don’t know why I never killed myself. I thought about it, a lot.”

M
y voice was cracking at the end; I couldn’t take anymore. It felt like my chest had been cut open, and my worthless self had been laid bare for Nathan to see, to dissect, and then to abandon as a lost cause. I wouldn’t blame him, because everything he said was true. I was hollow, nothing but emptiness. I so craved the love I had been denied and the chance to love in return. Words could not express how deeply I craved the feeling of being
wanted
.

Nathan did that. He made me
feel what I hadn’t ever felt before: wanted, desired, beautiful, sexy. To him, I was all of those. He made me start to think all I’d been led to believe was a lie. He was filling the void. I would give him anything he wanted. It was twisted and unhealthy, but I didn’t care. My feelings for him were more than I had ever felt for anyone in my life.

Sobs wracked
my body, my fists losing their momentum. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me to him, holding me up.

His fingers stroked my hair, calming me.
“You’re dead inside, just like me.”

“That’s not true,” I argued. “You have very strong emotions, violent almost.”

He laughed. It was almost maniacal. “You don’t get it.” He pulled back to look at me, his gaze serious and intense. My muscles tensed in response. “I wish I was dead.” I stared up at him in disbelief. “I wish the paramedics had taken five more minutes to get there.”

Without thought, my hand reached up and connected with his cheek. It was as involuntary as him grabbing my wrist. I couldn’t stand the mere thought of him not being
there with me. His head snapped back to face me. He wasn’t angry, but stunned instead. Tears slid down my cheeks.

“Please, don’t leave me,
” I whispered, my voice breaking.

“I wish the battery on the defibrillator h
ad been out,” he continued on; the emotion gone from his face and voice. “That way they wouldn’t have been able to restart my heart. Because then I wouldn’t feel dead inside, in pain daily. Because I wouldn’t be here, hurting you.”

He paused in thought for a moment, probably asking
himself how much he could give.

“I’m angry because I’m
alive. My heart, my soul…they’re gone, dead, but my body remains. This is my purgatory.”

Tears w
ere streaming down my face even faster. My fists picked up their beating against his chest.

“No, no, no, no
! Please, please, Nathan… I can’t fathom… I
need
you. You make… I’m falling… Please, please, please.” I begged and pleaded over and over again. For what, I didn’t even know; for him to stay with me, for him to live, for him to never wish to be dead and to be with me always. I
needed
him to live.

I couldn’t even make out what I was saying, but I hoped he understood the meaning. I was
falling, hard, for him. My chest constricted, and I almost doubled over from the strain. The feeling was so foreign I didn’t know what to do.

His arms wrapped
tighter around me in an attempt to contain me, but I pulled back. My hands smacked his away, hitting his chest.

“No!
” I screamed, pushing him away.

I didn’t want him to soothe me.
Not anymore. If he didn’t want to stay there with me, what was the point?

“Lila,
” he cried out, clearly stunned at my reaction. I could hear the desperation in his tone, panic setting in. His hands grabbed at my arms. “Baby, stop!”

“No
!”

Every
time he tried to restrain me, I escaped. Through my blurry eyes, I saw his panic mixed with anger and frustration.

He managed to get
a hold of my wrists and walk me backward into the wall, pinning me.

He growled, his forehead resting against mine. “Calm down.”

“Say it!”

His eyes were screwed tight, knowing what I was asking; his fists closed around my hair as
he took in a shuddered breath.

“I want you,” he said
before capturing my lips with his.

CHAPTER
14

H
e leaned over me, pressing me into the wall. Our lips, teeth, and tongues met in a frenzy I had never experienced. I pushed back into him, my fingers reached into his silky locks and pulled hard, tipping his head back. He groaned as our lips broke apart, his hips rocking against mine. He was ready, very ready.

My teeth nipped at his jaw
, working down to his neck. I found a nice spot right below his ear, and bit down, sucking, marking him.

“Fuck.
” His hands moved down to my hips, his fingers digging in to the flesh beneath.

I growled at him like a possessed demon.
“Jesus… I can’t take it! You’re mine. You’re not going anywhere.
Mine
!”

“Why do I matter?
What difference, if any, do I make?” His words spurred me on; gasoline on my raging fire.

I’d show him and then some
. I’d tell him why we needed each other, but without words.

I pulled his hair in my fist, smashed his lips to mine one
more time and shoved him toward the bedroom.

“Lie down,” I ordered.

I had no idea what I was doing, but that was the point. Thoughts were always getting in our way, keeping us from going anywhere. I needed that blinding white, all-consuming rapture we shared to engulf us, to wipe our minds clean like it always did. In that place, I not only felt whole, I felt powerful.

He stripped
off his clothes, his eyes shifting down to his eternal erection. I wasted no time tearing my clothes off, and pushed him down on the bed. I’d show him why he couldn’t leave me and why we both mattered.