Tentative fingers brushed my hair, smoothing it like Colette had done. For how compelled everyone seemed to groom me, I must have looked a mess.
“But why are you sad?” Darby asked. “It’s a compliment, you know. People don’t shell out cash for things they don’t think are valuable.”
I hadn’t come to terms with it yet—first, the fact that I’d been assigned a price, and second, that Beck had been willing to pay it. It was an exorbitant amount, but he’d barely flinched. At first, it had felt like a gift, but after everything that followed, it seemed more like a debt. One I had no way of repaying.
“Do you miss him?” Darby’s question changed the course of my wandering thoughts.
“Yes,” I answered too readily, then shook myself. “But that’s not it. I…”
I was heartbroken, and I could have been angry, but I wasn’t. I was seized with sorrow and the slow, seeping assurance that the thing I’d lost was something I should never have had.
But maybe I could have had it a little bit longer. The fact that I didn’t was no one’s fault but my own.
“Darby, I ruined it,” I confessed, pushing up to face him at last.
“Ruined what?”
I struggled to sitting, and feeling returned to my limbs like a flurry of fire ant bites. Upright and across from Darby, I couldn’t help but slouch as I explained. “I poisoned him. Our first night together. He’s mad. He should be. And he…” The stream of words crashed into a rock. A hard truth in the middle of the current, something I could not avoid. “He said we’re through,” I whispered.
Darby’s marigold eyes grew intensely focused. “You made him enthralled with you?”
I cringed while finding myself unable to deny it. “I didn’t mean to,” I said. Then added, “Or maybe I did. But Darby…”
He tipped his head, and his tail swished slowly while he waited for me to drum up the courage to admit, “I wanted to keep him.”
Then it was tears all over again. A waterfall.
I pressed my palms to my face, knowing they would flood but still trying to staunch the flow as Darby cooed at me.
“Come here, Cherry.” He opened his arms, and I dove into them, letting him wrap his much smaller body around mine.
He tugged me to his chest, and I latched onto his waist. The fabric of his jacket was fuzzy against my skin as hedutifully wiped my tears and swept my hair back. I was sweaty and snotty and probably as red as a beet, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t shy away as I buried my face beneath his chin, getting a waft of the perfume that might have been overwhelming if my nose wasn’t so busy running.
Gradually, my eyes dried, but I stayed tucked in, finding a measure of peace inside the ring of Darby’s arms. I wasn’t sure if I’d had brothers or even sisters when I was alive, but I was certain I had one now.
The petite demon petted down the nape of my neck and onto my back in long, soothing strokes. It might have put me to sleep, which would be the only way I could hope to get any rest in this pornographic playroom.
My eyes fluttered closed as my strangled breaths eased, and above me, Darby mused.
“You know, I don’t get to do this much.”
“Do what?” I sniffled.
“Cuddle,” he replied while rubbing between my shoulder blades. “Be close. Sugar daddies don’t like their babies being too needy. You want new shoes or a pretty pair of panties? They’re on it. You want to just be held without a dick in your ass? Not so much.”
The mention of sex made my empty stomach churn, and I grimaced. “I would love to have a dick in my ass right now.”
Darby giggled, then adjusted to hold me tighter. “Well, you can’t have mine. I save that for special occasions like taking a piss, and…” He paused long enough that I glanced up to see him contemplating. Finally, he shrugged. “Actually, there’s nothing else. So you’re on your own.”
I sighed, amused by his banter but too exhausted to show it. I’d barely laid my head back down when he nudgedme, directing my attention to one of the glass-fronted bookcases positioned against the wall.
“Luckily, you have a whole army of dildos at your disposal,” he said. “Give one a name. Take it for a ride.” He snickered, and I had half a mind to tell him to take every one of the fake, rubber things to the dumpster because the point remained…
“I’d still be hungry, though.”
He’d stopped petting me at some point, but at that, he trailed his fingers down my spine. “Yeah,” he hummed. “I guess so.”
“Was Beck my sugar daddy?” I wondered aloud.
