Deviant Love

26 - HER

[Chapter 26]

"Oh, Daisy."

His voice was too soft, too certain.

I felt it before I fully processed the words—the shift in the air, the slow unraveling of everything I thought I knew.

Alex leaned in close enough that his breath ghosted over my skin. His lips barely touched below my ear as he whispered the words that sent my stomach plummeting into the abyss.

"You've always been mine."

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't think.

For a second, just one second, my mind flashed back to a different Alex, a different life. To laughter in a tiny apartment. To the scent of motor oil and cheap takeout. To the boy who used to look at me like I was his whole world.

Now?

Now he looked at me like I was his to keep, claim, cage.

I did not like it.

My lungs tightened, my body locked, and suddenly, the air in the room felt too thick to breathe.

A cold shudder rippled through me, my skin breaking out in a sharp, icy prickle. My hands, traitorous and trembling, curled into fists, fingernails biting into my palms, but it did nothing to steady me.

Everything felt wrong.

The walls of the room pressed in, the space between us shrinking, and the weight of his words—You've always been mine—coiled around my throat like a noose.

My heartbeat pounded against my ribs, erratic and panicked, thundering too fast, too loud. My breath turned shallow and uneven, coming in short, ragged gasps, like my body was forgetting how to function.

A burning sting gathered in my eyes, a pressure in my chest so sharp it ached, and before I could fight it back, a tear slipped free—hot, unwanted, betraying me completely.

I saw it happen in real-time.

Alex's fingers—so sure, so possessive just seconds ago—twitched.

His entire body stiffened, his grip loosening immediately like he'd been caught touching something fragile he wasn't meant to hold.

His gaze, once unshakable, flickered.

Something fractured behind his eyes. Something that looked a hell of a lot like panic.

I could see the moment it hit him.

His breath hitched, his posture tensed, his brows drew together sharply—and then, just like that, he took a step back.

Not far enough.

Not enough to erase what had just happened.

But enough to tell me he knew.

He had crossed a line.

He had done something irreparable.

His fingers, the same ones that had held me so tightly just seconds ago, curled into fists at his sides, knuckles white, chest rising too fast, too unsteady. His lips parted, a breath—a curse, maybe, or an apology—caught in his throat.

And for the first time since this nightmare started, Alex looked afraid.

Of me.

Of himself.

Of what he had just done.

I didn't wait.

Didn't give him a chance to fix it, to make excuses, to say whatever twisted thing he was about to say.