Primal Pursuit - Page 176

“This entire night I figured I’d let you try. I’d disarm you or something. There were maybes. A fuck ton of them.Maybe this, maybe that. But I was planning on walking the fuck away.”

“And now?”

“Now, since you’re so close, you should just finish the job.”

“You’re not going to kill me? What you said…? About the room?”

He sighs. “It was a long fucking time ago, Rabbit. I didn’t know them. Or you. It was just a job. I don’t have any remorse except that now that I know you, I know just how much it fucking hurt you. But I can’t change the past, Rabbit. What’s done is done.”

“So?” I keep coming back to that word. Keep landing on it, and I want to be sick.

I want to shoot him full of holes. I want to wrap myself around him and never let him go. He’s got my heart. And…and I think this might be his fucked-up way of letting me know I have his, except he’s too much of a fucking coward to live and deal with the mess of emotions and old wounds.

He’d rather I kill him than love me.

Fucking asshole.

“So, I kill you? Without you trying to kill me?”

“That’s about it, Rabbit. No free fucking pass. I’m ready for you to heal and take me out for my sins.”

I’m having trouble seeing straight as the anger, hurt, and pain swamp me and drag me down. “You mean I redeem the irredeemable? By killing you?”

“Something like that.”

I cock the gun and come at him, jamming it into hisribs. He drops his gun. And I almost shoot him for that. Almost.

“You’re a piece of fucked up shit, Davian. You can’t even tell me you’ve fallen in love with me.”

“Have I?”

“Yes. And you’d rather take the coward’s way out by dying than actually admit it or take my love. You’d rather let me fucking shoot you.”

“You’re confused, Rabbit. Pull the fucking trigger.” His voice is rough edged now.

“No, I’m not. No one else will ever go this far with your twisted games. No one else would love them like I do. Live for them. No one else would have slept with the man who killed her parents and kept coming back for more. No one else would bleed this way for you. No one. And now? You want me to shoulder the burden of your crimes by killing you? Assuaging you? And living with that?”

I shake my head and jam the gun in hard. “Fuck you, Davian Stark. Fuck you to hell and back, you cowardly piece of shit.”

I go to throw the gun, but he grabs my wrist and keeps it there, jams it in even harder against his ribs.

“You need to make the choice, Penelope Jane Parish.”

It stings. Hearing my name. My old name. The person I once was. I’m not sure I know her anymore. I’m not even sure I’m Poppy. I think I’m Rabbit. Or some weird version of Poppy and Rabbit. But not Penelope. She died. Long ago.

“I hate you as much as I love you,” I snarl, the words bitter on my tongue, invaded by the saltiness of tears.

He drags me and the gun in hard. “That’s the problem isn’t it? What if you wake up one day and I’ve decided I don’t want to die by your hand anymore? What if I decide to kill you? What if you kill me and can’t live with it? Now, if you do it now, you can move on. Later? I don’t think so.”

“That’s some twisted thinking, asshole.”

“It’s the truth.”

“No. The truth is we’re both fucked up and?—”

“Grow up, Penelope. Finish me off and live your life, or just walk.”

I don’t say anything for a very long moment. “You mean stain my soul or live in pain?”