Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2)(68)

Impossible to deny, even for me.

Nothing.

Nothing was left of her.

Had I given too much? Was there enough of me left to even try to move on from this?

Is this what had happened to my mother? I wondered, feeling some bit of sympathy for her for the first time in years. Had some man broken her spirit, so much so, she had become a shell of a woman without him? Would I let myself turn into some apathetic ghost of a woman?

No, I thought furiously. I was stronger than her. I would struggle untill the end. Even if I could see now what it would take for me to become like her, it didn’t mean I had to. There was one undeniable quality that I had known about myself since I was a very tiny, unloved child.

I was a survivor.

And so, I had to try to move on from this.

TRISTAN

She was at my apartment, slamming around in my kitchen. She was pissed at me again.

She’d brought me a cup of coffee, and I sipped on it while I listened to her venting her frustration at my kitchen. I winced as I heard something break.

The thought suddenly occurred to me that our separations weren’t doing this to her.

She seemed harried, yes, stressed out and busy, of course, but the pain in her eyes, the rage, came not from my absence, but from my presence.

That killed me.

A light suddenly went on.

It wasn’t a spotlight, but a floodlight, illuminating everything I didn’t want to see, every dark, sinister corner of my pitiful existence. The facts were the light, and I’d been ignoring the facts for way too long.

My life was cursed. People I loved, people close to me, who depended on me, had died, and I was responsible. As far as I was concerned, every single one of those deaths had been preventable, and I had failed to prevent them.

I had no future. This had been clear to me for a while now.

But what suddenly became clear, what made my skin crawl with its pristine simplicity, was that Danika did not have to share this future with me. She didn’t have to be dragged down into the abyss with me. I’d been selfishly keeping her on this sinking ship, and she deserved so much better.

What had I ever been thinking, dragging her into my mess of a life? How had I ever thought that I could be good enough for her?

She came back into my room carrying a plate of food. She set it on the nightstand, then came to stand in front of me, hands on her hips.

I set my cup on the floor, my hands going to her hips. She was wearing tight, low-slung jeans, and I buried my face against the bared skin between the top of her pants and the bottom of her shirt.

Could I really do this? I wondered.

One thing was for certain, I couldn’t do it without touching her at least one last time.

Her hands went to my hair, gripping. I could tell that, with just the small touch I’d given her, she was softening in her anger. She never stayed mad at me for long, no matter how much I deserved it.

I kissed her belly, that perfect belly. “Danika,” I breathed against her skin. My arms snaked around her body, clutching her. “We can’t do this anymore.”

She stiffened, then relaxed, stroking my hair. “Drink some more coffee, Tristan. Get sobered up before you start spouting nonsense at me again.”

I kissed her belly again, closing my eyes, digging deep for strength that I didn’t think I possessed.

“This isn’t working, Danika. You know it as well as I do.”

“Stop it!” she said sharply, tugging my head back, making me look at her.

I flinched away.

She was ruthless, following me, kissing me, lying down beside me.

I groaned and covered her body with mine, needing to feel her against me more than I needed to breathe, even if this was the last time.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed against her face. “I’m done.”

I couldn’t take her eyes for even a second, couldn’t take the wounded, condemning stare, the pursed, angry mouth. “Stop it,” she said, but this time her voice was weaker, less certain.

Still, she wasn’t done torturing us both, and lifted her head to press her lips to mine. I took her mouth with a rough moan.

She was going to be taking another important piece of me with her when I made her leave. There was no helping it. No changing it.

“We’re over, sweetheart,” I told her, when we pulled away to catch our breaths.

“No,” she protested, her voice a faint thread.

She kissed me again, and I kissed her back. She peeled her shirt off, and I helped her, my hands roaming freely over her bared skin. She reached down to free my thick length into her hand, and I pushed hard against her palm.

I was only human, and a flawed one at that.

She stripped us both bare, and pulled me on top of her. I didn’t enter her, just lay on top of her, our bodies molded perfectly together, our heartbeats pumping restlessly against each other, my erection throbbing along her entrance.

It was the most exquisite torture.

When all else failed, I thought, become the kind of ass**le that I knew she would hate. I squeezed my eyes shut as though bracing for a blow, face buried in her neck. “I think I’d be better off on my own. Being tied down just isn’t doing it for me.”

She was sobbing, and I held her. She kissed me, still sobbing, and I kissed her back, eyes still closed tight. “Why, Tristan, why? Why are you doing this?”

“We need to do what’s best for us, and at this point in our lives, we aren’t best for each other.” I used the we, because if I made it only about her, she’d never accept it. The we was a lie, but it was also my only hope. “This marriage was a mistake.”