Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

“It’s just a hug.” I burrowed deeper into him, shivering as the ice from his skin coated mine. I’d hoped my heat would warm him, cure him. However, the opposite had happened. He’d infected me with his coldness, the perpetual blackness in which he resided.

“Gemma—” He pushed me away with a grunt, his jaw gritted and eyes wild. “Stop.”

I sat back on my knees, studying the anger in his stare and the suffering in his body. He looked as if two creatures lived inside him. An animal who’d been mistreated for so long it no longer knew how to act and a boy who still desperately wanted to believe in second chances. A mischievous malice blended with dangerous bitterness.

I should’ve been the one accepting comfort after what he’d done. I was fully within my right to scream at him and plunge the knife into his heart. Yet, there I was, feeling guilty for not being able to soothe his pain. For feeling wrong by trying to force a hug on him, when really, I should respect his space, seeing as no one else ever had.

I didn’t have a clue how to act or what to do in order to grant him peace.

Dropping my gaze down his body, I sucked in a breath as I caught sight of his erection. It hadn’t deflated. If anything, it seemed to have grown even harder. A rock-hard weapon that currently did its best to drive him mad.

He groaned under his breath, catching me staring. Angling himself away, he went to cup his length, to grant some privacy, but the moment his palm landed on his cock, he hissed and ripped his hand away. A wash of white flashed over his face, followed by glittering sweat on his forehead as if just the barest brush of his own hand made him fight the urge to be sick.

How would that feel, not being able to trust yourself? To have your own body stolen from you so you couldn’t grant a smidgen of comfort or care? What sort of monsters had taken a boy and groomed him so badly that a simple graze of his palm made him rather choose suicide over masturbation?

My shattered heart cracked all over again, fragments on top of fragments, splinters within splinters.

With his head bowed, he brought his knees up higher, trying to hide his twisted arousal. “You need to leave,” he growled. And God, the pain in his voice. The profound desolation, the stinging lust and yearning desire. Whatever nightmare had triggered his need, he wouldn’t be free of it unless he came. His body had gone too far to be denied.

In any other ordinary man, he could grant relief on his own. I could give him some time alone, he could stroke and fondle and be rid of the desperate hunger in his blood.

But he wasn’t an ordinary man and this wasn’t an ordinary house, and frankly, I wasn’t an ordinary girl.

Not when it came to him.

Not here on the floor after everything that’d transpired between us.

Bracing myself, I once again placed my hand on his knee.

His head shot up, his eyes narrowed and threatening. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

“I get that you’re in pain.”

“And you aren’t?” He scoffed. “After what I did to you?”

“You didn’t hurt me physically.”

He bared his teeth. “But I scarred you emotionally. You’ll always know what that feels like now. To be taken against your will—”

“Just like you were so many times in your past.”

He choked. “Don’t. Don’t make this about me. I’m not the victim here.”

“But you are. You were. I understand.” I shook my head. “I forgive you.”

“Stop saying that. You should never forgive someone who—”

“Who’s strangled me so many times I’ve stopped counting? Who’s slept with me on a clifftop in a storm? Who’s chained me to live with them for God knows—?”

“Exactly!” he snarled. “Hate me. Christ knows you’re fully within your right. Use that blade you keep threatening me with. Didn’t you promise to kill me if I ever took you again?” His nostrils flared. “Well? Go on. Do it! I want you to do it. I need you to do it.” His voice caught as his tone slipped into a feral groan. “I want this to stop. This shit inside my head. This never-ending loneliness. This inability to be happy...to be free.” His temper suddenly raged, shoving aside his vulnerability. “Get it over with. Do it.” He snatched my wrist, shaking me. “Don’t make me give you another reason to kill me. Because I will. I’ll hurt you. It’s a fucking guarantee. You said so yourself! You said I’d end up making a mistake, and look what fucking happened! What if I end your life the next time I snap, huh? Do yourself a favor and stop me before I have the chance.”

I didn’t reply, allowing his growing animosity to fade even as sparks of lust continued to dance in the air between us. His fingers around my wrist sent fire through my blood. The quick inhale as he jerked away and let me go sent confused desire and foolhardy attraction spearing into my belly.

I sucked in a breath.

He shook out his hand as if he couldn’t stop the tingles of heat our skin had conjured. He wasn’t the only one affected by our closeness; not the only one frustrated by our quick fuck on the floor.

I hadn’t wanted it.

He hadn’t either.

Yet it’d happened, and it still hovered around us, unfinished and expectant.

He winced as his hips rocked upward, ignoring his denials. He grunted and looked at me like a hunted thing. “Get away from me. You’re only making this worse.”