I want to ravage her in those tiny fucking shorts. Tear them off with my teeth and bury my face between her cheeks, feasting on her slick core. I want to revel in her thunderous moans while we give this whole fucking house a show they’ll never forget.
I want to see her spent and panting on her knees, in glorious, whimpering submission. To listen to her beg for more while wearing a full face painted with my cum.
Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you?The voice comes again.
However, this time, I have an answer.
Lilith is what’s wrong with me.
“Are you just gonna stand there screwing around or are you going to help me?” Lilith asks, wiping a bead of sweat off her brow.
“Stand here. Screw around,” I say. I’ve got the best seat in the house, with a show of a lifetime on display.
There it is again. More thoughts I shouldn’t be having. Not because of who she is, or because Lilith’s about to be family. Those matters are irrelevant. But a Ghost’s life is a solitary one. Even among my brothers and sisters in the Veil, I can’t expose myself to weaknesses of the heart or the longings of the flesh.
I was thirteen when Elias first explained it to me. I’d been training, and during a sparring session he’d noticed my distraction. He’d laid a hard left hook into my temple that left me sprawled out on the floor, concussed. It had been, as I recall, easy to see coming and easier to dodge.
But for a brief moment, my mind slipped away from me and fell on a girl whose name I can’t remember. I’d just come home from my first day of high school and I was infatuated with her. It felt like so much more than a simple, schoolyard crush.
Elias’s fist reminded me that there is no place for emotion in a Ghost.
I was homeschooled after that. Isolated from the outside world, and taught by the greatest modern minds. I never thought about that girl again, after a few weeks of grieving her loss. Not until now.
And that’s why I regret not stopping my feet from moving closer to Lilith and speaking.
“What do you need help with?”
“Why don’t you use those long legs of yours to help me get the stuff in—” She cuts herself off with a yelp, followed by a loud screech that demands my attention.
I look over just in time to see the stepladder wobbling under her weight.
I lurch forward and extend my arms with lightning-quick reflexes. One hand goes under her knees, the other just below her neck, hoisting her up the same way I did all those years ago.
Lilith looks at me with big, puppy-dog eyes and gulps down hard. What surprises me is that she doesn’t try to wriggle free, opting instead to hook one arm around my neck for a more stable and comfortable hold.
“You saved me,” she says. It’s playful, I presume. The fall wouldn’t have killed her. I doubt it would’ve hurt much.
I set her down, but her arm lingers against my shoulder far longer than it has reason to. I like the way it feels. Warm. Pleasant.
“You should be more careful,” I say, tilting my head toward three broken plates that lie spread across the floor. In my hurried response to save her, I didn’t hear them break.
“Oh, so, now you’re concerned about my well-being?” she asks, her voice holding the same gleeful tone.
It doesn’t reach me the same way. All that comes to mind is what Elias said that time, as I lay on the floor seeing stars and verging on tears.
“Emotion is weakness. Weakness is death.”
“I need to go,” I say.
“What? Where?” Mortified by my reaction, she crosses her arms over her chest and takes a step back. Her trainers crunch the porcelain underfoot.
“Away.”
I exit in haste, bumping shoulders with two movers who are too focused on their own conversation to get out of the way. If there are consequences, I will face them honorably. But I cannot stay here, where my mind keeps turning over.
I can’t stay here, when I’m starting tofeelsomething.
Chapter Fourteen
