Page 75 of This Life of Mine

The mirror seems more protected—like I’m not intruding, simply…witnessing. Cataloging damages the way I was trained to—the way my mind does automatically when it sees harm.

I recognize that specific type of bruising. Impact. Drag. Resistance.

That fucking piece of shit, Cole.

Something dark awakens inside me, familiar as an old scar and twice as dangerous. A version of myself I keep locked down for a reason, stirs awake, already running scenarios, already measuring damage. I picture his face. The sound bones make when they give. I could make him beg and plead for pain to stop and indulge in pure bliss when I don’t.

I push the fantasy down.

She moves through hip openers, stepping into a deep lunge and sinking into it, hands resting lightly on her thigh as she rocks forward and back. A faint wince crosses her face as she stretches, followed by a soft exhale she doesn’t quite manage to silence. She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t rush it. Just breathes through the discomfort.

And somehow that makes the anger worse. Like I could crush every fucking thing in my sight. I could end anything that could ever do something like that to her again.

She rotates through her spine, slow twists, arms sweeping wide before crossing her body. The oversized T-shirt lifts again, exposing more evidence—skin that should never have been marked by someone’s hand who claimed to love her.

My pulse slows the way it does when I’m enraged enough to be precise.

I tell myself to focus on my own warm-up. On my breathing. On anything else.

Still, I watch as she sinks into a deep squat stretch, elbows pressing gently into her knees, rocking side to side to wake up her hips. Her body looks strong here. A quiet “ouch” escapes her, but she moves through it. Capable. Not fragile.

That’s what stops me. I take long, slow, steady breaths to resist the urge for bloodshed—to resist leaving this place to prep my tools for peeling Cole’s skin back.

She rolls her ankles, calves, shakes out her legs, and finishes with a few slow bodyweight squats. Enough to prime the muscles—to remind herself what’s coming.

Leg day.

When she moves toward the rack, she loads the bar with focus, checks her stance in the mirror, and adjusts her ponytail once more.

That’s when I catch her eyes flick briefly toward my reflection. Checking.

I don’t react. Don’t meet her gaze. I reset my grip, pretending I’m adjusting my posture. I won’t be the guy who stares. I won’t reduce her to movement and curves and angles—won’t let the violence in my head bleed into how I see her body now.

But I’m human. And when she lowers into her first squat—controlled, steady, powerful—the mirror betrays me.

Her legs flex beneath the fabric, muscle tightening with deliberate precision, breathing perfectly to the movement. The curve of her hips shifts back, and her ass—round, full, unapologetically perfect—pushes against the stretch of her leggings like it’s begging to be grabbed. Tugged. Pulled back against me.

I force my eyes away. Controlling my egotistical male thoughts isn’t hard when it comes to Lina. I don’t see her the way I’ve seen other women—as bodies to collide with, warm places to empty myself into without consequence.

Like Elaina. My go-to back in Queens when I wanted something hard and fast. She liked to play porn star—wanted it rough, raw, degrading. I didn’t care. I could fuck her without thinking about her emotions afterward. There was no conversation. No lingering. We fucked, dressed, and moved on. No desire beyond the release. Never wanting more.

Lina isn’t that.

Being older now, I’m better trained. Want doesn’t announce itself the way it did in my twenties—doesn’t betray me with an instant hard-on, doesn’t make me reckless or sloppy. That doesn’t mean it’s gone. It now knows how to wait. Be patient. And I would wait for Lina. Abso-fucking-lutely.

She moves through her sets with quiet determination, pausing between reps, hands braced on her thighs as she breathes. Sweat darkens the fabric at her lower back, clinging to skin that glistens under the lights. Every movement is earned.

Fuck me for her strength sexy. Not the leggings or her beautiful curves. Not even the way her shirt lifts higher to tease the full, devastating shape of her ass when she moves.

It’s the knowledge behind it. That someone tried to take this body from her. Control it. Break it. And she didn’t let them.

If that realization makes something brutal and possessive spiral—something that knows how to hurt a man and make him disappear afterward—I lock it down with practiced ease.

Because wanting her body is easy. Wanting to taste her. Devour her. Spread her open and drive myself deep into her until she gasps and moans at how full I can make her—that’s easy too. Dangerously easy.

Fuck!I have to stop thinking about that.

Protecting her trust? That takes discipline. And tonight, watching everything her body has survived and reclaimed, that restraint—that control—is the only kind of strength that matters.