It’s what we have right now.
Tears slip over my waterlines, falling freely down my cheeks before I can choke my emotions down. He’s not happyhere. He’s just happy tobehere.
He takes his time raising his hand to my face, using his thumb to dry my tears with adoration softening his eyes. “Come on.”
Getting up with me, he gives me a moment of being back on my feet, then he’s crouching down and languidly slipping my panties off.
It’s not at all like when he ripped them down and threw them across the room with a carnal drive. It’s sensual and attentive, like there’s an ache under his ribs for me, like he’d garner my bones when I’m too frail to bend.
I step out of the white cotton around my ankles, wiping the extra tears breaking loose through my lashes. He’s implementing the same care into my underwear as the rest of my clothes, doing the most thoughtful fold before standing up with them and placing them with my bra on the sink.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
RAZOR
Suds follow the washcloth over her shoulder, slipping down her suntanned skin, the transparency collecting the orange tint of the wavering flame. I take my time over the prominent bones, admiring the contours that make her look easy to catch.
So fucking soft. So small.
It was easy breaking her skin with my teeth. She’s fragile. But not weak. Her exterior is susceptible to damage. But internally she’s the strongest person I’ve ever met.
I’d like to see it; how pink she is in there even after all the rot she’s experienced. I want her inside and out, wanna be able to form my hand around her heart, close in on her warm pulse, just to leave my fingerprints on it. It’s a shame it would kill her. If I had a way to open her like a cadaver and draw my fingers along everything she keeps inside—Iwould.
Macabre images flash behind my eyes. Usually, the gory shots of crimson and violence are concerning. But subconsciously making up strange visuals of moving from the smeared scarlet on Bunny’s neck, down to her wrist to create a new wound to drink from—warms me.
Dunking the washcloth in the water, I run it back over the soap on her shoulder, stalking the loose suds traveling down her back and puddling into the bubbles surrounding her.
Her ribs. The precious cage protecting what I want most is wrapped in a blanket of hot water, leaving the skin that’s usually taut relaxed and pliable.
I could take one… Clean the meat from her bone to carry her with me forever.
I’d inhale her if I could.
“That girl earlier,” she rasps, turning to look at me over her shoulder, her glistening eye peeking around the curtain of dark cocoa framing her face. “Did she say her name?”
“Yes,” I answer, leaning over the edge of the tub to tuck her hair behind her ear. “All she said was Cassi.”
“Did she say why she was watching us?”
I sigh deeply, barely letting out the jet of air. “Film. Movie. Whatever the fuck.” Getting more soap on the cloth, I clean around her neck, taking extra caution of the bruises I left on her. “We apparentlyinspired something.”
“A movie.” She looks away, staring off into the dancing candle. “That could be fun, though. Why were you mean?”
“I wasn’t mean,” my brows slam together. “That was a valid reaction to some random lady creeping hard enough to draw us in under ten minutes.”
“Ew,” she frowns, looking back at me again. “You didn’t mention that.”
“Xene still has her little journal, so it doesn’t matter now.”
Observing me for a moment, she’s huffing and spinning around, her hair following in a delayed spiral beneath the water. “You wanna know why I got the heebie-jeebies from her?”
“Oh, baby, tell me what made your skin crawl,” I lean into her.
She sputters a laugh, tossing a wet hand to my shoulder and taking a quick deep breath to calm herself. “She kinda looks like Carl.”
Heebie-jeebies indeed.
I see it now that she’s saying it. Same cold, glazed over eyes and taut bottom lip, almost like a deep-rooted evil needed someplace to fracture the mask.
