“How’d the hell you land that?”
“Luck,” I say, because there’s no version of the whole truth that I can say out loud.“That, and I texted him by mistake.”I tell her the sanitized story of Cassius.I leave out the blood.I leave out the ghosts and knives and vows in showers.
He doesn’t come home that night or the next morning.He doesn’t text.He doesn’t call.He isn’t there when I return from work on Friday evening.I’m going nuts.If he doesn’t come home this weekend I’ll truly lose it.What am I supposed to do all day when I’m off and he’s not around?It should mean nothing.We’re married on paper.It isn’t real.But the silence threads under my skin and tugs.I text Victoria.
If my husband isn’t back after dinner, let’s go to Mirage.
Her reply is immediate.
Victoria:
Let’s go either way.
sixteen
Saturday morning,Cassius comes home before the sun.It was only a few hours ago that Logan dropped Victoria and me fromMirage.He drove her home; she kissed my cheek and disappeared inside.
I’m not convinced I didn’t dream him until he kisses my forehead and whispers he’ll miss me.I stay still, eyes closed, pretending to sleep.For a breath I think it’ll be easier this way, better than him seeing how tightly I’m holding on.But then I remember I’m trying to be brave and hook two fingers in his sleeve and tug.
“Come back,” I murmur.
He stills, then folds, bracing on his palms as I drag him down by his tie.His mouth takes mine, not careful, starved, and I open for him, catching the cool edge of his wedding band at my hip, the scrape of a cufflink along my thigh.I fist his tie tighter and pull until he’s over me, until heat and weight erase the space between us.His thumb finds the hollow at my throat and I tip my chin, shameless.When I hook a leg over his, he groans into my mouth.
“Lindy,” he says.I think it’s supposed to be a warning but sounds much more like a plea.I answer by biting his lower lip, tugging him closer, letting him feel exactly how not-asleep I am.He kisses me harder, deeper.The mattress protests.My breath trips into threes and fives.He breaks only to press his mouth to my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my lips, little claims, quick and rough, stealing time in pieces.
He pulls back an inch, forehead to mine.His voice is ragged.“You make leaving hard.”
“Hard,” I whisper, tugging once more on his tie, “or impossible?”
He huffs a laugh that sounds wrecked.“Both.”His thumb drags once along my lower lip.“You went toMirage.Men had their eyes on you.I don’t want to cage you, I swear I don’t, but I needed to see you with my own eyes.Needed to breathe you in.But, if I stay another minute, I'll take you half-awake and begging.You looking at me, asking… I'm thinking there’s a God after all.”
“I’m asking,” I breathe.His eyes go darker.For a heartbeat I think he’ll give in.Then he tears himself back an inch at a time, like it costs him skin.He straightens my strap with careful fingers, presses a kiss to the center of my palm, then to the pulse inside my wrist.
“Unfortunately, my darling, God is nowhere near where Travis needs me.”He looks at me like he’s making a bargain with himself.“I’ll have Travis start calling Sava.”
“Sava?”
“She’s theMonsterto myMachine.”
Jealousy prickles my skin before I can stop it.I picture some dark-haired goddess stepping into his world where I can’t follow.“Monster how?”
Cassius reads it on my face immediately.His thumb strokes across my cheekbone.“She’ll love you, Lindy.Protect you.We were… created the same way, molded into killers from childhood.”
I try to steady the thump under my ribs.“Why call her?”
“Because if she starts taking more of Travis’s calls, I can be here.Mornings with you.”He tilts my chin with his knuckle.“Coffee, breakfasts, fights over the covers.That’s what I want.”
“Did you really go toMirage?”
“I would’ve, but no.I was occupied outside the city, but I happen to know a man who can access any camera.”
I should tell him it’s too much.Instead my pulse beats faster.If he’s watching, I’m wanted.I like being the line he dares the world to step over, so I nod, swallowing a knot.“Come back safe.”
For a moment his face rearranges.Surprise, then something that looks like hurt.“Nobody’s ever told me that before,” he says quietly.“That’s… new.”He rubs his thumb over my ring.A spark of mischief cuts through the wreck in his voice as he hooks a fingertip under the lace at my hip.He pauses, searching my face.
“Yes,” I breathe.He draws his knife with the opposite hand and with one whisper of steel, the lace parts.He ghosts the flat of the blade up the inside of my thigh, cool, obscene, careful.He’s close enough to my now drenched pussy that my breath snaps.His mouth curves.Eyes locked on mine, he slides the back of the blade through my center, coating it, then lifts it to his tongue and licks up one side and the other.My heart staggers hard; heat punches low.My hand slips between my thighs and the chill of his blade is somehow still there.He slides the ruined scrap from my thighs, tucks it into his pocket, and sheathes the blade.“Every man in that room with you last night thought he’d found a new religion.But never forget, I’m the only one who will truly kill for it,” he murmurs, kissing my forehead.“Lock the door, Lindy girl.”
The second the door clicks, I roll to his side of the bed and bury my face in his pillow.It smells like steel and soap and something dark I can’t name but crave anyway.The heat he left in me finds its twin in another night.
