When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, stripped raw. “Maybe neither of us knows what the fuck we’re doing, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
His words sank into me, settling heavy in my chest. I didn’t move at first. Neither did he. The air between us stretched taut, charged. Then, slowly, I stepped closer. One inch, then another, until I could see the flecks of black in his green eyes. He didn’t reach for me right away, but when my breath hitched, his hand lifted. Rough fingers brushed my cheek, then slid into my hair, cupping the side of my face.
He held me there, his thumb hovering near my mouth, and I leaned into the weight of his palm. We stayed that way, eyes locked, sharing a fragile silence,something we might have broken if we moved too fast. My heart beat so hard it hurt, and I realized he could probably feel it in the way my body leaned into his. But still he just breathed with me, slow and steady, until it felt like the world was reduced to that small circle of heat where his skin met mine.
His thumbs swept over my cheeks several times, his eyes darting. “You know, you’ve got a shit ton of freckles,” he said, a startled laugh leaving me. “I never really noticed at the house because of your Doll paint.”
Then he let his hands drift into my curls.
“These, too. I like these,” he admitted, his voice rough.
No one had ever touched me that way before, not without expectation pressing down on it. My chest tightened, not from fear, but from the ache of not knowing what to do with gentleness.
I laughed again, softer, the sound catching in my throat. “You like freckles and curls? That’s what does it for you?”
His mouth curved, not into his usual smirk, but something quieter, harder to read. “I like that they’re yours,” he said simply.
The honesty in it nearly undid me. “You don’t know me,” I told him, breathless. “Ibarely know me.”
That seemed to interest him, his head tilting to the side as he continued to trace my face, his breath mingling with mine. “Me either. Maybe we can figure that out together, too.”
His forehead dipped closer, so close that his curls brushed mine, but still he didn’t kiss me. He just stayed there, his hand cradling my face like he was afraid I might disappear if he let go.
There was only the sound of our breathing, the faint rush of leaves overhead, and the thud of my heart trying to climb out of my chest. I thought if I moved even a fraction, if I let myself close that last inch, everything would change.
I was right.
I kissed Thorne, not knowing that one day, he’d destroy me. I kissed him, and I knew him as he was before he really became anything. I feel lucky now, to have known him like that, even despite the pain that came after.
The first drop of rain hit my cheek the instant our mouths brushed. Then the sky gave way all at once, rainbreaking open above us, soaking my curls, plastering his hair to his forehead. We kissed anyway. It was messy and awkward, but it was also the most precious, perfect thing I'd ever experienced.
For so long, kissing had been a transaction, a performance, a command barked from someone who thought my body belonged to them. But kissing Thorne wasn’t that. It was uncharted, trembling ground. His lips moved against mine like he didn’t know the rules either, like we were both fumbling in the dark.
He tasted like smoke and water, the bitter edge of our shared cigarette cut through with the sweetness of rain sliding down his lips. His hand held me steady at the jaw, his thumb shaking where it pressed against my cheekbone. When I leaned closer, he answered by sinking deeper into me. It wasn’t greedy or brutal, justthere, giving back what I gave him, like we were teaching each other what a kiss could be when it wasn’t paid for.
I felt the scrape of his scar when our mouths shifted, that thin line of healed violence pressed against my skin. It should’ve pulled me out of the moment, reminded me of what we were, of who owned us. Instead it grounded me. He wasn’t perfect.He wasn’t untouched. He was broken in his own way, and somehow that made it easier to let him touch the pieces I’d become.
The sound of it—the rain on leaves, the soft catch of our breath, the quiet press of mouths—was so small against the wide forest, but to me it felt loud. Louder than the echo of everything we’d survived. Louder than Viktor’s voice in my head. Loud enough that, for the first time, I believed love to be less of a concept and more of an aching seed that grows if a heart is open to it.
I curled my fingers in his jacket, clutching fistfuls of wet leather until my knuckles ached. The material was wet under my hands, but beneath it he was steady and alive in a way that made my head spin. My palms slid higher, tracing the shape of him; the broad span of his shoulders, the hard plane of his chest, the beat of his heart thrumming against my fingertips. I wanted to know all of him, every ridge of bone and line of muscle, to map him like contraband I could hide away with the rest of my treasures. My hands shook as they lingered over his ribs, and I realized with a jolt that it wasn’t from fear. It was want. Pure, terrifying want.
He tilted his head, deepening the kiss just slightly, and I swore I could feel him shiver when my fingers slipped up to his throat. His pulse leapt against my touch, wild and uneven, and I had the dizzy thought that maybe he was just as undone as I was, both of us ruined by a single kiss in the rain.
It felt like I was outside of Viktor’s world entirely. Just two young lovers in the woods. Nothing more. Nothing less. And if I closed my eyes, I could almost believe that the world began and ended with the press of his mouth, the weight of his hand at my jaw, the thunder rolling overhead like it had come to bear witness.
When he finally pulled back, it wasn’t because he wanted to. We both needed to breathe. He stayed close, rain dripping from his lashes, his forehead resting against mine. His mouth ghosted the corner of my lips when he whispered, raw and almost broken, “Arden.”
For the second time in my life, someone said my name in a way that felt like a claiming. First it had been Leah. Now it was Thorne. I didn’t understand it completely, but I thought, as he took my hand and led me back to his bike, that names are hollow things—just words with no shape until someone slots themselves inside them,burrowing into the very core of who you are. Then they become as much your identity as your name itself.
?Arden?
Sex for Thorne and I was like stealing cars. It had to happen for survival, and it had to happen fast. We stole minutes where we could—pressed against stairwells while Viktor’s clients drank champagne two rooms over. Our mouths were usually still raw from whoever he’d sold us to that night, but we kissed each other with the kind of dedication you give to a really bad itch. You can’t help but scratch it, because if you don’t, it justhurts, demanding your attention until you give in. We tasted each other through bruises, laughed when we should have been silent, dared each other to go one step further even knowing punishment was waiting. That was the trick of it. Viktor owned us, sold us, but for a few hours at a time we convinced ourselves we belonged to each other instead.
When the guards caught us one night—my dress still rucked up around my thighs, Thorne’s belt unbuckled—Viktor ordered us to the marble floor, side by side, and watched while his men laid into us. Thorne bared his teeth and took it, but I screamed, and Viktor smiled like he’d been waiting for the sound. By the time he dismissed us, my back was slick with blood and Thorne’s jaw hung crooked, but what stayed with me wasn’t the pain. It was Viktor’s voice, calm as prayer, reminding us that anything we gave to each other had first been taken from him.
We were fine. Abused, maybe, but fine. We found our way to each other, day after day. Leah warned me against it, said Viktor could only be pushed so far, but she didn’t realize how much money I was making him. As long as I was consistently taking my birth control pills that were delivered to my bedroom each morning just as every Doll's was, Viktor didn't give a shit if one extra person was fucking me. He’d started selling me in the courtyard—my shoulder pressed to Thorne’s, his to Kane’s, Kane’s to Rafe’s—as the rich shouted bids like we were cattle. Naked, lined up under the searing sun, we waited for someone’s voice to decide how long we’ddisappear. Thorne and I were lucky; no one had bought us for more than a night at a time, our usefulness ending at sex and whatever we could steal when the Buyer wasn’t looking. Kane and Rafe weren’t so lucky. They were muscle and murder. Most who bought them needed them long enough to take care of any problems.
“Three months,” Thorne whispered one night, my head tucked in the crook of his arm as we lay wedged in a crawl space that stank of mildew. “That bitch bought Kane for three months, Arden. He’s never been gone more than a week. I already barely recognize him. I’m terrified of what I’ll see in his eyes when he comes back this time.”
