On a bone-shattering sigh, he pulls back. “I…I didn’t mean to do that—”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I say automatically.
But it’s funny. I used to risk beatings to ensure that my johns wore condoms. Piotr was the only man I couldn’t sway, but he made sure to secure birth control for me, at least. In his own words, he wouldn’t put off fucking me for nine months out of the year.
“Do you…” He licks his lips and swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Do you have it covered?”
Is that guilt that sweeps through me on a dizzying wave? I shake my head. Chloe Parker didn’t care for the pills, those tiny multicolored reminders of hell. It was never an issue before, and only now does the danger, other than an STD, sink in. He could get me pregnant—if he hasn’t already.
Does that scare me? I think on the answer as he braces both hands on either side of me, leaning forward so that our foreheads connect, our bodies still entwined. The answer is probably moreterrifying than the prospect. A baby—hisbaby, wouldn’t be Piotr’s, but something he could never taint. Someone he could never own.Mine.
“I know from Darcy that…that there are ways you could.” He breaks off without revealing exactly what. He sounds so damn tired.
I just tilt my head so that our lips touch, our breaths mingling, our air shared.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. We linger like this. But some emotions can’t be fucked out, requiring to be expelled another way.
“I never wanted to be a part of this shit.” He pulls back, gritting the words out toward the wall. The muscles in his forearms chord, and I can’t stop myself from running my fingers along them, sensing the tension coiled underneath. “Arno. Mack. Dante. I never wanted a part of any of it.” He laughs coldly, shaking his head. “Funny how that turned out, huh?”
“What did you want?”
He looks down at me. Really looks as his eyes narrow and he processes the question. “I wanted to go to school. Do art. Be normal, whatever the fuck that means. But then Dante—” He breaks off, clenching his jaw as his halo flickers again. On. Off. On. “I couldn’t leave Arno to deal with his mess alone.”
There’s pain in the way he says it. He put his own dreams on hold for his friend. But that’s only half of it. The rest of the truth takes longer to spill out, lingering over his tongue.
“I got sucked in,” he admits. “This life… There are no consequences. No real rules. No law. It’s the only kind of environment where someone like Arno could ever judge someone like me.”
“You think he’s disappointed in you.”
He sighs and rakes his fingers through his hair. “I wanted to go to France one day, you know?” he says. It seems like he’s speaking to me, but the eye contact is merely for my benefit. The words come from his soul. “I thought I could make a livingdrawing tourists around Paris. Learn from some pretentious fucking art school. I even took classes.” He laughs. “I’d grown up drawing on the back of notebooks and napkins, whatever I could get my hands on. But these people… They had ‘art tutors.’ They took trips to Europe to learn how to copy shit from fancy art museums. Their stuff was a mockery of what they thought looked pretty. It didn’t contain an ounce of their soul. Their pain. So I dropped out, and…”
His gaze drifts down to my face, and his thumb grazes the corner of my mouth, feeling the wet hint of himself lingering there. He opens his mouth. To talk, I think. To reveal more of his past. In the end, he just kisses me again, more deeply than before.
We wind up flat against the tabletop, with me on top of him, writhing to feel him harden up against my thigh. This time, it’s quick. We both use each other, grinding ourselves into one another’s skin. When we finally break apart, panting, I don’t know what makes me say it, my cheek partially pressed against the cold tile floor.
“You had dreams. I had…goals. A checklist of things I had to do in order to make it through each day.” I can see them flit across my mind, even now.Obey. Resist. Submit. Survive.Over and over like clockwork.
He stiffens up beside me, running his hand down my back. “With Vlad?”
I inhale the question and exhale the truth. I tell him everything. Every dark, twisted, sordid detail save Piotr’s return. I don’t hold a single damn thing back. I spill it all. He breathes it in. Like smoke. Like nicotine. He’s high on me, hating the buzz even as it burns through him.
My face feels wet when I finally trail off, and he’s holding me, his body braced overtop mine, his breath warm on my shoulder. It’s enough. Against Piotr and his madness, his touch is enough. I can overcome it, just for now. I can relish the sore ache of himand the brutal spice of his scent. I don’t have to worry about the consequences.
I don’t even have to feel. I let him own me, this angel. For a brief moment, he flies me out of hell.
Arno isn’tcontent to just call this time. He attempts to break the front door down, and Espisido has barely managed to draw his pants up by the time he barrels inside.
“Espi…” His gaze flickers over in my direction. “Can we talk in fucking private?”
“No.” Espi reenters the kitchen to grab his shirt from the floor and pulls it on over his head. “Anything you want to say to me, you can say here.” There’s no anger lacing his tone. That’s because I’m carrying it all. His confessions linger on the air like wild electricity, sparking and alive.
“Fine, then.” Arno slams the door behind him and stalks forward. He has his head lowered, but it’s only when he comes closer that I recognize the motion as more contrite than aggressive. “About what happened back there… I’m sorry if things got a little—”
“It’s okay,” Espi says. He even looks like he means it. Twenty sordid minutes could purge him of his darkness and let him pretend again.
Am I jealous? Impressed? I’m too tired to tell, haunted by my own demons. Piotr’s waiting. With Anna? Or chains…
“Did Jose get what he wanted?”
