Page 53 of Dirty Hit
“I know,” I say, before I can stop myself.
The admission sits there, heavier than I want it to. Because I do know. Different reasons, same weight. Being told what you are, over and over, until you start carving yourself down to fit it, and then resenting every piece that still sticks out.
He breathes out slowly. “So if I’m already wrong, if I’m already… yours, apparently, and I’m already in this, then you might as well not hurt anyone else. If this is going to happen anyway, if you’re going to… break something, let it be me. I’m already broken. Maybe if you take it out on me, then some drunk girl doesn’t end up in an alley instead.”
His logic is warped, but it’s so heartbreakingly him that I genuinely don’t know whether I want to scream at him, or laugh, or put my fist through the wall again.
“I love that you think this is about damage control,” I say. “That you think you can manage me like one of your students. Redirect the violence. Give it a nice, safe outlet.”
“Isn’t that what you’re basically doing with football?” he shoots back. “Directing your aggression into something that people cheer for instead of arresting you over?”
There it is again—that spark. The brat. Even now, with fear and want all mixed up in his eyes, he can’t help but talk back.
It shouldn’t turn me on.
It absolutely fucking does.
I step back into his space, bracing my hand on the wall beside his head, and his breath catches. I stare down at him, letting him see exactly how frayed my control is.
“You have no idea what you’re asking me for. If I‘take it out on you,’like you so nicely put it, that doesn’t mean a few bruises and some harsh words. I don’t tap into this and then switch it off and go back to being your polite little student in the morning. I don’t play with my food—I consume it. Do you understand?”
His pupils blow wider instead of narrowing. That alone tells me too much. “I’m not food.”
“I could devour you whole,” I say, because honesty is crueler and cleaner than comfort. “You’re offering yourself up, thinking you’re a one-time sacrifice. What I’m telling you is if I take you up on that, I won’t want to stop—not after tonight, not after the next night, not after the draft. Not after anything. I will destroy you, and still keep you, without feeling guilty about it.”
He’s breathing harder, chest rising and falling against the small space between us. The worst part—the most fucked up part of all of this—is that what I’m saying doesn’t make him recoil. His gaze drops to my mouth for the hundredth time, as if he’s fighting the urge to lean in.
“You say that like I’m not already ruined,” he whispers. “You said I messed up your coping mechanisms, so why are you pretending we’re gonna go back to the way things were before?”
This. Fucking. Martyr.
I close my eyes for half a second, because this boy is either going to save me or kill me, and I’m not sure which would be kinder. The image he just offered—me taking it out on him instead—won’t get out of my head. It’s a razor on a loop.
He chuckles, making my eyes snap open. “Now you’re suddenly Mr. Noble because you’ve decided to take the safe road? Since when does the Beast play safe?”
The nickname hits me in the chest harder than it should. There’s no mockery in it. No fear. He’s naming the part of me everyone else either romanticizes or avoids, and somehow, he says it as if it belongs to him already.
“Seriously?” I say. “You really want to be the guy who volunteers to soak up a serial killer’s bad day, and then bitch when he says no? That’s the worst logic I’ve ever heard.”
He rolls his eyes, and the sheer audacity of that gesture nearly pulls a laugh out of me even as my temper spikes.
“Yeah, well. I’m not exactly operating from a place of healthy decision-making right now—you messed that up weeks ago. You don’t get to be the Beast and the hero at the same time, Dominic. But you’re wrong about one thing,” he says, voice slightly dropping. “I’m not a martyr. I’m selfish, actually.”
Before I can ask what the fuck he means, his arms slide up around my shoulders, looping behind my neck. He has to rise onto his toes to do it properly, the top of his head barely reaching my chin, and the contact lights up every nerve in me.
He leans in, breath warm against my ear, and the whisper that follows is soft enough that if I wasn’t attuned to him, I’d miss it.
“Use me,” he whispers, and the words go straight down my spine. “Take it out on me. You keep saying I’m yours, so use what’s yours, Beast.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight. He shifts his weight, swaying close, and his whole body is one long line of temptation pressed up against mine.
“Stop,” I say, but it comes out hoarse.
My hands find his hips without me meaning to, fingers curling into soft cotton and the hard line of bone underneath. I squeeze too hard, and feel his breath hitch against my throat. A part of me makes a violent, desperate decision all on its own:if I start, I won’t stop. Not tonight. If I let myself use him right now, I’ll go until there’s nothing left in him or me, and I don’t know which of us will be worse for it.
“You keep saying no, but your body keeps saying yes,” he says, throwing my own fucking words back at me. “Which one am I supposed to listen to?”
“Christ,” I mutter, because hearing that out loud from him doesn’t help. I try one last time to shove him toward safety, even if I don’t actually move him.
