sinrizzywrites
The cold press of steel against her forehead was nothing compared to the fire blazing in his eyes.
His fingers, calloused and commanding, dug into her waist as though she might vanish if he loosened his grip. Her breath came out in ragged, uneven bursts, but her chin lifted, trembling yet defiant, meeting the monster in front of her head-on.
The gun didn't waver, but his eyes did.
"Kill me.," she whispered, her voice breaking like glass.
Her plea was not born of weakness but of exhaustion - a soul battered too long by a storm she never chose. Tears clung stubbornly to her lashes but didn't fall. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her break.
For a heartbeat, silence pulsed between them, louder than any gunshot. His thumb brushed against her skin - not gently, but like a warning, a claim. The metal against her forehead was ice; his palm at her waist burned.
She closed her eyes, almost welcoming the darkness she thought would follow. But nothing came. No shot. No release. Only his ragged breath, heavy with something she couldn't name.
"Say it again," he growled, voice low, dangerous, and rough.
Her eyes snapped open, tears flowing like a free river through her eyes, and for the first time she saw it - the crack in his armor. He hated her for asking, hated himself for hesitating.
"I said KILL ME. PLEASE just do it," she repeated, louder this time, as though her words could pierce through whatever war was raging inside him. "I-I can't go through this anyy-m-more."
And for the first time in his life, the man who never blinked at blood, at screams, at endings, faltered. His finger tightened on the trigger. His grip on her waist tightened too. The world narrowed down to this moment - predator and prey, sin and innocence, violence and something dangerously close to longing.