Our Broken Pieces

Chapter 27

Mystic~

I was angry.

I was angry and hurt.

I may have hurt him, but he'd been the one that had let me go. He had let me down, and I'd been suffering for it for ten goddamn years. The horrible part about it all? With his hands digging painfully into my arms, I didn't care about how much I had hurt him or how much he had ruined me. Just like in the conference room earlier today, I was catapulted back to that fateful day in the park restroom. The day when the boy that I had feared had taken what he'd wanted from me, and I had fallen in love with him for it. The day where fear and desire had warred with one another to create a bond forged in vehement fire.

Violence had become my religion, and Gage had been the temple where I had worshipped. So, staring up at this beautiful, broken, enraged man, I was ready to drop to my knees and rediscover my lost faith. His hands were going to leave bruises, and my core soaked my underwear with the knowledge.

This was the hell that embroiled drug addicts, alcoholics, and gamblers. The struggle of knowing that something was wrong and unhealthy but being too weak and powerless to walk away from it. Because even though I'd been the one to leave all those years ago, Gage had been the one that had ended us.

"What was I supposed to do?" he asked, regret lacing each word. "You vanished, Mystic. You vanished, and everyone close to you told me you left by choice."

This bastard.

"Since when had you ever given me a choice, Gage," I tossed back. "That afternoon in the park restroom? Any time after that? The night of Margot's birthday party? All of a sudden, you believed that I was making choices without you." I got in his face because I was done carrying this burden. "You walked away from us. Not me."

His hands tightened around my arms, then he shook me a bit. "If I'm the one who walked away, then why haven't I been able to go a day without thinking of you?" he snarled. "If I'm the one who ended us, why can't I fuck another woman without imagining your face on her body?"

That stung.

I'd always known that Gage was too much of an alpha male to go ten years without sleeping with another woman, but I didn't want to hear about it. Granted, I hadn't kept my legs closed these past ten years, but this was all about perception. He had blocked me from his life, not the other way around.

He'd done this.

So, while the sex had been unfulfilling, I still hadn't ever felt guilty over it. Sure, I'd felt guilty that I couldn't enjoy it as much as I'd led my partner to believe, but I'd never felt guilty for trying to move on, even if I'd known that it'd be near to impossible. My celibacy now was out of unfulfillment, not because of Gage Evans.

So, because I didn't want to be the only one dancing on the edges of this hell alone, I got petty and vindictive. "Trust me when I tell you that you are the one who ended it. If you hadn't, I would never have been able to move on and get underneath the next guy."

Gage's hand snaked out, then circled my neck, squeezing painfully. Did I think that he was capable of strangling me to death? Yes. Did I think that he would? I wasn't sure. Was I scared that he would? No. Was I losing my mind, as well as this argument? Yes.

Yes, I was.

His face was a magnificent picture of masculine rage as he seethed, "You dare mention the men you've slept with to me?"

"Because you think I'd want to hear about the women you've slept with?" I fired back. "You gave me up!" I screamed. "You gave me to them!"

Gage's other hand crawled up in my hair, tangling it in a painful grip, before his mouth slammed down on mine, and it wasn't tender or particularly loving. It was violence unleashed.

I cried out when his teeth sank into my bottom lip and copper flooded my mouth. I couldn't speak for the past ten years, but the Gage that I'd known in high school had always been a biter. He had loved leaving his mark, and he'd made them with his teeth often. If his hands hadn't been bruising my flesh, then his teeth had been tearing into it.

When he pulled back, his lips were painted red, and his snarl was feral. "You ever mention another man to me again, and I will fucking destroy you," he threatened. Little did he know that it was an empty threat. He'd already destroyed me ten years ago.

"Then don't throw the other women you've fucked in my face," I countered, not caring that it made me sound like a jealous harpy, because I was jealous. Gage was never supposed to have known another woman just like I was never to have known another man. We were supposed to have been each other's one and only, and I hated that we weren't.

"Oh, baby," he cooed evilly. "The only woman I have ever fucked was you."

"Gage-"

"They were warm bodies, but it was your face I saw every damn time," he continued. "I couldn't get my dick hard unless I imagined they were you. But because I knew they weren't, I could only take those experiences so far. No one has ever replaced you, and I know now that no one ever will."

We had just demanded denial from one another, but we were doing just the opposite. "I fucked them hoping I'd find another you," I told him honestly. "But I still haven't."

His fist tightened in my hair. "Right here, right now, Mystic. In this moment only, will you ever have a choice with me. Make it," he demanded.

Did that mean that he believed me? Did that mean that he forgave what he'd believed had been my transgressions against him? More importantly, could I do this and not fall down the dark, dangerous, unhealthy rabbit hole that was Gage Evans? Could I walk away a second time? Would I let him walk away?

I stared into his dark blue eyes and saw everything that was wrong with him. I also saw everything that was wrong with me reflected in them. My body also screamed for him. It screamed for everything that I knew he was capable of giving me. It screamed for fucking release. It screamed for the anticipation of the man that he was now versus the boy that he'd been. While I knew what a teenage Gage could do, I had no idea what a grownup Gage could unleash.

As I stared up at him, my mind was telling me that I was a fool. It was telling me that sex was not the answer. It was telling me that I needed to distance myself from the situation and give both me and Gage some time to absorb the truth of our past finally coming out. It told me that all was not forgiven, and that there was a bigger fallout from all of this.

It told me to fucking run.

Nevertheless, my heart...my heart was telling me that I was exactly where I should have been all along. I was in Gage's sadistic embrace, and there was nowhere else that I should be, nowhere else that I belonged. Everything inside of me was at war, and I didn't know what the right choice was. I felt that the answers yes and no were both equally damning.

The internal battle was real.

Still, at the end of it all, there was one solid truth. In ten years, I'd yet to meet a man that could make me feel even an ounce of what Gage Evans made me feel. All these years without him, and my feelings for him still felt like a tornado that was never meant to be controlled.

"Mystic..."

That one word; my name.

My name said in a way that sounded like a prayer and a curse had been all that I'd needed to make the second worse decision of my life. The first being the decision to walk through the park that day, because in the end, loving Gage had ruined me. So, loving him now was sure to end me.

"One night," I insisted.

Gage's laugh was hollow and dark. "Forever," he negotiated.

"No, Gage-"

"Forever," he snarled, and then he took my choice and made it his own.