A painful groan tore from him before he swallowed it down.
Her eyes went wide. "You… you broke your finger?!"
When the sharpest edge of pain passed, he lifted his gaze to her.
And that look.
It was dark and violent. Not directed at her, not exactly. His pupils blown wide.
Vee instinctively took two steps back.
He saw the flicker of fear in her expression.
The anger drained from his face almost instantly.
He stilled. His shoulders lowered. "I'm never going to hurt you, Vee," he said. "Don't look at me like that." He looked wounded when he said it.
"But you did hurt me."
"You asked me questions you knew were going to hurt you," he replied.
"I needed to know," she shot back, "Because I guess I hoped that you wouldn't…" Her voice trailed off, the rest of the sentence too naïve to survive being spoken.
That you wouldn't want her.
Tears gathered in her eyes. "You swore you would never hurt me! And yet you did! You did!"
