Ruin & Rule

“Anything.”

His hips tilted dangerously. “How much do you want me?”

My eyes flared and my insides melted. I would play his game. Questions could wait. Anything that might ruin what we had could wait an eternity. “So much.”

He shuddered beneath me. Chemistry sparked between us. Passion and need. The connection beyond intense, throbbing with history so much deeper than a few misunderstandings.

Before I could answer, his skin blanched and he rolled me off him. “God, this is so fucked up.”

My body went instantly cold, missing his heat. Sitting upright, he cradled his head in his hands. “I can’t believe—after all this time.” His biceps throbbed as his fingers latched into his long hair. “It hurts to believe. It hurts my heart to think you’ve been alone—all this fucking time.” His eyes glowed with rage. “They told me! They made me—”

I couldn’t keep up with him.

My heart thundered. I scrambled to my knees. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. As long as you keep me—”

“Keep you?” His face twisted. “Fuck, I was going to sell you! How can you look at me? How can you sit there and still care about me when I’ve been nothing but a fucking asshole to you?”

“Honestly? Because something inside me knew all along. Call it kismet or some soul-deep connection. I saw past your actions and into your heart.” I took a breath, trying to steady the flutter in my chest. “This entire time I’ve had nothing to guide me. No past lessons or memories. I had to rely on instinct, and no matter how you treated me, everything inside vibrated with knowledge that you were the one I was running to. Even when I should’ve been running away.”

Arthur sat stunned. His lips twisted in pain. “Fuck. Do you have any idea what that does to me? To hear how damn selfless and strong you are? To believe in us so absolutely, even when I did everything in my power to destroy you? You make me feel like a fucking monster. I’ll never deserve you after I stooped to their level. A level I vowed never to go to.”

I couldn’t stand to see his anguish; I shuffled closer.

He continued, “I can’t understand how this happened. I believe you are her—but the burns… the tattoos. It’s playing havoc with my mind.”

He hung his head in his hands, pulling away even more. He muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear.

He smiled sadly. “If what you say is true, then my life just got even more fucked up and the nightmare has only just begun.”

I trembled with foreboding. “What nightmare?”

He stared into the distance, seeing things I never would. Shaking himself, he said, “Doesn’t matter.” His eyes went sharp and he tackled me to the bed. Spreading me on my back, he murmured, “Right now, I want to focus on you—us. I want to remember you.”

With nimble fingers, he followed my tattoo to my hip. His gaze locked onto the design that’d snapped him from his fugue and made him believe the truth.

Finally, he looked up. “You want to know what set me off? What makes me so fucking terrified that you’re telling the truth? That all of this is real, even though it’s so hard to believe?”

I nodded.

I gasped as his fingers traced the pattern inked into my skin. “It’s here. After all this time, I never thought—”

Tensing my stomach muscles, I tried to sit up to see what he did. But he kept a hand splayed on my rib cage, keeping me down.

Then he began to talk.

“You were thirteen. I’d been helping you with your homework every night since you flunked math. I’d always thought of you as my baby sister or an annoying tagalong, but something changed that night.” His voice was wistful, full of aching longing. “You were the one who kissed me. You threw your workbook to the side and launched yourself into my arms. We fell off the couch, crashed against the coffee table, sent paper flying. Thank God your parents weren’t home, because you put up a fight when I tried to stop you.

“We rolled around, you trying to kiss me, me trying to avoid it. But you won.” A smile graced his face. “Nothing would stop you from getting what you wanted. And for some inexplicable reason, you wanted me.”

His eyes met mine. “You tasted of cola and sugar, and you fucking drugged me that night. I wasn’t supposed to want you. I was almost four years older and already had a girlfriend. Not only was I making out with my father’s best friend’s daughter, but cheating on the girl I’d agreed to be exclusive with.”

My heart hurt. I didn’t remember his girlfriend and a fire churned in my belly to think of him loving another.

He smiled, tracing the frown on my forehead. “Still jealous, after all this time.” His eyes clouded, carting him back into the past. “You didn’t allow our age to get between us and you didn’t accept my no as an answer. You dragged me from loving you as a little sister to loving you like a man should never love a young woman. Especially you being his daughter.”

“I made you fall in love with me?”

He chuckled. “Cleo, you made me fucking dedicate my world to you.”

Cleo.

Cleo.

My world fractured and I fell through the cracks.

“Cleo, baby, we’re having a dinner for the other members tonight. Go put on your best jeans and come and help with the decorations.” My mother’s bright red hair shone beneath the kitchen spotlights.