“So you get to screw with my head, f**k with my life, take what you want and you give me nothing?”

“You got it,” he answered, total y calm.

He could not be serious.

“I don’t believe you. You’re just… unbelievable, ” I spat my earlier thought out loud.

His hand travel ed down my arm, locked around my wrist and pul ed it up. When he had it between us, his hand shifted, pressing mine flat against his beating heart.

“You want in here?” he murmured, his eyes intense, so intense I felt my gut clench with fear. This was a fear I didn’t understand, it wasn’t even logical, but it scared me al the same. It was the same fear as yesterday morning, huge and uncontrol able.

“No,” I lied. Except for the ability to play my music, being in his heart was the only thing I’d ever wanted in my whole effing life.

He shook his head. “Until that answer changes, babe, you get what I’m wil in’ to give you. My protection, my attention and my cock.”

I gasped at his frankness and my body went solid with fury.

“Unbelievable,” I hissed.

“When the time comes where you give me somethin’

without me havin’ to pul it out of you, where you give me a piece of you without me havin’ to take it then I’l give you a piece of me.”

“That time’s never going to come,” I snapped back though I wanted a piece of him. I wanted more than a piece of him, I wanted al of him. I even wanted a chance to help him battle those demons. In fact, I wanted the chance to take them on al on my own if it meant Mace wouldn’t have them anymore.

I knew it, I hated myself for my weakness but it was the truth.

I might not be able to be honest with him but I had to be honest with myself or at least this once.

“It’l come,” he promised, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I glared at him to hide the emotional tumult in my head.

He calmly returned my glare.

“Don’t you have shit to do?” I reminded him, my voice sharp.

I was done.

Done, done, done!

He kept watching me for a few beats then his gaze went soft. Instead of moving away from me, his head came down and his face disappeared in my neck.

I pushed at his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t wanna leave it this way.”

“There’s no other way to leave it,” I informed him and his face came out of my neck. He rol ed off me to his side, taking me with him, his arms around me. Both hands slid up my back, he pressed the area between my shoulder blades so my torso was tight against his and he threw a thigh over mine, pinning me.

I didn’t fight this. I was beginning to learn (belatedly) that fighting him physical y was detrimental to my abilities to fight him emotional y.

One of his hands tangled in my hair, giving it a gentle tug so my head tilted back. He dipped his chin down to look at me.

Then he said, “Al right, Stel a, I’l give you one.” Uh-oh.

One? One what? My brain asked.

“One what?” I said out loud.

“A piece of me.”

Oh dear.

He kept talking. “The worst part of breaking up with you was you lettin’ me walk away.”

My breath packed up and took a shuttle flight to the moon.

“What?” I whispered.

“It was so good between us, I didn’t think in a mil ion f**kin’ years you’d let me walk away,” Mace went on.

“What?” I asked. Yes, again!

His arms got tighter, his hand fisted gently in my hair, right before he said, “It was a test.”

His words hit me like blows, my body froze rigid then I shouted, “What? ”

“You failed,” he continued.

Effing hel . Effing hel . Effing bloody hell.

“You… are… joking,” I breathed, careful y enunciating each word.

“Babe, I hope you get that I’m prepared to fight for you but I gotta know you’l fight for me too. This shit goes both ways. This doesn’t end until I know you won’t walk away but also you won’t let me walk away. Never again.” What he was saying wasn’t quite penetrating my brain.

“What you’re tel ing me,” my voice was both quiet and weirdly scratchy, “is that if I’d asked you back, you would have come?”

The fingers of his hand not in my hair started to stroke The fingers of his hand not in my hair started to stroke my spine.

“I needed you to make a statement, Kitten,” he said softly. “You didn’t.”

Al of a sudden, I felt like crying.

I fought it and persevered at trying to understand what he was tel ing me.

“What you’re saying is you didn’t break up with me because you wanted to break up with me. What you’re saying is you broke up with me to test me?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

Simple as that.

Yeah.

A year of heartache and a simple “yeah”.

It al boiled down to that.

Tears fil ed my eyes, I didn’t want them to but I didn’t fight them either. I was way beyond fighting. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling; I just knew none of it was good.

“Okay,” I started, my voice now croaky and his hand left my hair, his other hand stopped stroking my spine and his arms got tight. “I just want to be sure I have this straight. You came into my life, gave me the first something good I had outside of music and took it away as a test? ”

“Kitten –”

What he said and what it meant final y penetrated my brain.

“You jerk,” I whispered.

His arms grew tighter. “Stel a, listen to me –”

“You jerk,” I repeated, my voice breaking, the tears sliding out the sides of my eyes, I didn’t even try to control them because I knew I couldn’t.

“I didn’t know how you felt, you didn’t tel me –” he started.

“You didn’t ask,” I reminded him.

“Babe, if I’d have asked, would you have told me?”

“Yes,” I said immediately and watched his head jerk back in surprise but I ignored it and went on. “I would have told you, back then I would have given you anything.” He watched my face as if assessing my honesty then his hand went up, his fingers sifting into my hair, he tilted his head back and shoved my face into his throat.