Necessary Cruelty

+ Excerpt

When I come awake in the middle of the night, I immediately know that I’m not alone.

The thin curtains covering the window let in enough light from the floodlights outside that I can just make out the figure sitting at the desk chair in the corner of my room.

For a moment, fear grips tight around my throat and steals my breath as I reorient myself to the present instead of dreaming about the past. The fear is immediate and momentary, lasting only until my vision adjusts to the darkness enough that I can tell who it is sitting there.

As if there isn’t only one person that it could possibly be. Vin watches me come awake with an expression that isn’t visible in the dark, but somehow I just know there’s a scowl on his face. Wood creaks in the silence as he shifts his weight, but he doesn’t say anything.

And neither do I.

Grandpa is long asleep, not that he would be capable of mounting the stairs to come to my rescue. And I know that Zion hasn’t returned from wherever he goes at night because the noise he makes coming up the stairs would have woken me up.

Vin and I are never alone at school. He either has the other Vice Lords with him or he avoids me like the plague. At least, it feels like he avoids me but I can’t ignore the fact that he always seems to be around anytime the rules are broken. One time, Liam Connelly grabbed my elbow and tried to pull me into a broom closet, knowing that I wouldn’t open my mouth to protest. Vin was there before Liam even had the chance to close the door behind us, breaking my would-be rapists jaw badly enough that he required corrective surgery.

But that’s always been one of the rules: no one else gets to touch me.

I see a flash of white in the darkness and I know that it’s the note that Jake had my brother pass to me. Vin leaves it on the table as he stands, seeming to loom over me even though he’s still across the room.

He circles the bed like a shark in the water, scenting blood. But it’s his scent that permeates the room, a heady mix of woodsmoke and bergamot with just the barest hint of roses. Always, with the fucking roses. I have the feeling that he rubs himself down with them just to mess with me. The scent will stay here, tainting the air, long after he’s gone.

It’s been so long since the last time he showed up here like this that I almost had myself convinced we were done. But the two of us are like two meteors on a collision course for each other, destined to collide in a spectacular display of destruction.

In a more fanciful moment, I tell myself that it’s jealousy or possession that has brought him here tonight, after weeks of staying away. But I know that it’s both simpler and more complicated than that. He’s here because he can’t stay away. But he also might wrap his hands around my throat and squeeze the life from me, something he’s threatened to do more than once in the past.

His presence here is inexplicable because there isn’t any explanation required.

Vincent Cortland does whatever he wants, whenever he feels like doing it. That is simply the way that it has always been.

Everybody talks about destiny like it’s some wondrous thing that’s written in the stars. But destiny is just the inevitable end result of your decisions rushing up to meet you. If you jump off a cliff, then hitting the rocks below becomes your destiny. You’re accelerating towards it and at that point there’s no stopping what has to happen.

Just because something is your destiny doesn’t mean that it won’t destroy you.

I fold my legs in front of me and wrap my arms around my knees as my gaze tracks his movements in the dim light. He paces like a caged predator in a zoo that’s desperate for a way out. I don’t say anything as I continue to watch him. This always plays out the same way and I had to learn patience a long time ago.

Vin crawls into the bed without asking for permission and I scoot to the side to make room for him. He lays on his side on top of the blankets while one hand wraps around my waist to haul me back against him. His open hand rests heavily against my stomach, forcing me down with pressure that’s just on the wrong side of too much.

Spooning is supposed to be a romantic thing, but he manages to turn it into a punishment. That’s always been a talent of his, taking something good and twisting it into something that I both love and loathe.

We lie together in the dark until our breathing is in sync. I try to take slower and shallower breaths because I hate that it’s so easy for our bodies to become a perfect match. But it’s no use trying to fight it, our chests rise and fall together, his breath tickling the back of my neck as he exhales.

An hour passes but neither of us are asleep. Every place that his body touches mine burns. My muscles were clenched and taut as he forces me back against him, but his proximity forces me to relax as if my body reacts without needing my mind’s consent.

The way that my body responds to him is beyond my control and it always has been.

I only wear a t-shirt to bed most nights, maybe throwing on a pair of sweatpants when it’s particularly cold. Pajamas are a luxury that I simply don’t understand. It’s hard for me to imagine spending money on clothes that I can only wear to bed.

The hand that has been still on my stomach this entire time shifts to my hip, stroking down the bare skin of my exposed thigh. His lips touch the back of my neck, so softly that it makes me want to cry. But I won’t call it a kiss, refuse to even think that word. Despite everything, despite my fear, the one thing I will never let him do is kiss me.

When his mouth shifts away, it leaves a flash of heat across my skin, one that refuses to fade away.

He rubs my thigh in small circles for long enough that it almost lulls me to sleep. When his fingers grip my hip hard, I let out an involuntary sound but it isn’t one of pain.

His hand finds the damp crotch of my panties and he exhales sharply against my neck. Moments like this are the only time when he is ever gentle, touching me in a way that is slow and deliberate, almost reverent.

I could fight him off if I really wanted to. If I screamed or said no and pushed him away, then he would go. He isn’t here to force me, it would almost be easier to deal with if he were.

I don’t say yes, but I also don’t say no.

Because I don’t say anything at all.