JPOV
"I can't take back what I just did. I can't take back any of it, for that matter. And it's fucking killing me..." I could hear my own voice breaking, the emotional turmoil on the inside seeping its way out. I tried to reign it back in, but when I looked down at her, her gown still shoved up around her waist and her fragile body laying on the hard-ass stairs...How could I have done that to her? I had vowed to never treat her that way again, but I guess my word didn't mean shit, not even to myself.
I ran my hands over my face with a frustrated growl. Not telling Isabella about everything that I knew was exactly what forced her hand and led us to that moment. And I couldn't hold it in any longer. I had to get it out. I had to purge the secret because if I didn't, I was going to cross that thin line between guilt-rot and insanity, and things between us would only get worse.
Just say the fucking words, Justin.
"I know, Isabella. I know about your mother, and I know she's the reason you did this. I didn't want to fuck you, because...it wasn't right. I didn't want...to fuck you anymore, because...somewhere along the way, I did the unthinkable," I said throwing my hands up into the air. "Jesus...I fell in love with you. There. Are you happy? Now you know. And for the record, it was never about her. It was always about you."
Fuck me, I'd done it. I'd told her everything.
She just looked at me, stunned.
And...all I could do was sit and wait for the fallout, but not then, and not there. She would find me when she was ready, and I'd feel so much better about doing it in our room. At least within the relative safety of those four walls maybe she wouldn't get the urge to push my ass down the fucking stairs.
I dropped my arms in defeat and started the long trek up to the second floor. My legs felt heavy, my feet like cement blocks as I took one step at a time, willing myself to walk away. Everything inside me was screaming for me to go the opposite direction, to sweep her up into my arms and run like a mad man, carrying her away from everything...to someplace where the outside world couldn't interfere anymore.
That was the dreamer in me. The realist...he knew we couldn't hide from shit anymore.
With every step I took down the corridor that led to our room, the distance to the door seemed to lengthen, but I finally made it. Leaden arms grasped the knob and gave it a turn, opening up to the place where we'd first consummated our relationship. Even I had to scoff at that. Consummated...the word sounded far too clean for what had actually happened there. More like I had damned it...doomed for failure from the very fucking beginning.
I shed my jacket, throwing it to the side like it was a dirty wash cloth instead of the expensive tailor-made masterpiece that it was. I didn't fucking care. There was far more catastrophic shit going on in my life for me to worry about whether or not a friggin jacket got a crease in it. Catastrophe number one, I owned a sex slave. Catastrophe number two, I'd fallen in love with said sex slave. Catastrophe number three, said sex slave had a dying mother that I was keeping her away from. Catastrophe number four, I knew all that shit and still fucked her like a goddamn animal on the fucking stairs.
What a fucking douche I'd become...
Grabbing my pack of Marlboro's, I loped over to the couch and slumped onto the cushions. The flame from my lighter cast an orange glow over the otherwise darkened room as I lit my cigarette and exhaled the smoke in an exaggerated fashion. The nicotine calmed me, and God knew I fucking needed it. I was ready to explode, ready to tear down the home that my parents had built with my bare hands until there was nothing left but a pile of rubble. Because that's what my life had become...fucking rubble.
