“Huh?” he continues. “I stand back while some asshole intimidates you into his bed?”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I’m not fucking stupid. And I don’t need someone to protect me. I don’t need some knight in shining armor and I’m not looking for a hero.” Tears warm my eyes. I hate them, hate the weakness. But what I’ve said has made him stop. Confused him almost.

Then he laughs. “You think I’m trying to be the hero?” A moment later, he drops his head. His forehead creases and he’s looking down for a long time before he shifts his gaze back up to mine, searching mine as if it holds the answers. “I’m not the hero, sweetheart. I’m the fucking monster.”

When I don’t reply, he grins. It’s a sad, one sided thing.

“What do you think of that? Makes more sense, right?”

I push against him, but it’s like trying to move a wall, and the look in his eyes, the dark desperation in his words, his voice, it scares me. “Let me go.”

“No.” He takes my wrists in one of his hands, draws them over my head, pins them to the wall. His other hand grips my skirt, yanks it up. “You’re good. You’re the only good in my life, you know that?” His eyes skim my bared legs, the stockings that reach mid-thigh. “And I want what I want,” he finishes, dragging his gaze back to mine. “I should let you go. It’s the right thing to do, I know.”

I can’t process what he’s saying—it’s almost like he’s not talking to me but to himself. Like he’s been thinking and thinking and he’s just saying it out loud now.

He touches my face, my cheek. His thumb presses against my lower lip, forces my mouth open. “But I can’t,” he says finally.

“You have a key to my house.” It’s all I can say and fuck, he’s so close and when he presses against me, against my clit, it takes all I have to not wrap my legs around him. Rub myself against him. Hump him like some animal. Because I do want this. Want him. It’s not just that part of me, either. It’s all of me. Even though I know my heart will shatter when it’s finished. When he’s gone.

He kisses me hard, not waiting for me to kiss him back. His fingers curl into the crotch of my panties, push them aside, roughly rub my clit.

“You’re wet.”

“This is too fast. We don’t even know each other. Don’t you see how strange this is? How not normal?” I’m just talking though. I don’t want him to go. To walk away. Even if it is wrong.