He pushes himself to a sitting position, the scent of vanilla motel soap rolling off his skin. A sliver of light from the bathroom door slashes across his face, turning his handsome features beautifully monstrous. There’s a jubilant rage in his eyes. “You want to peel back the layers, Baz? Snip away the skin, carve off the flesh, snap the bones, and look inside? You want to see the rotted, putrid organ pumping away in my chest, feeding my carnal form?”
“You’re being very extra,” I whisper, “but yes.”
He leans down to me, his lips a bare inch from mine.
“I can show it to you,” he breathes against my mouth. “Every twisted thing I’ve ever done to myself and to others. I can show you that there’s nothing left in me worth loving or saving. A violent confession, all at once. Are you brave enough?”
I swallow, then drag in a shaky breath. “I am.”
“Then I’ll show you,” he says. “I’ll show you my portrait tomorrow, and you’ll have your excuse to let me die.”
He moves away, sinks back onto his side of the bed. My body is galvanized to the mattress, riveted by that moment of passionate nearness. I wanted him to settle himself against me, crush me with his body, devour my lips.
I want him so hard it’s like blood in my mouth, like iron undermy tongue. I want to tell him I’m not looking for an excuse to let him die. I don’t want that for him. I don’t.
“What if I put your soul back in your body?” I venture. “I mentioned that before—I think I remember how my mother did it. What if—”
“No. That’s not an option.”
“Dorian—”
“No.”
“So it’s immortality or nothing?” Now it’s my turn to sit up, furious and exasperated.
“Would you accept anything less if you had the option?”
“I don’t have the option,” I say tightly.
“Maybe we can find another way for you.” Dorian’s voice is faintly desperate. “Some way for you to have youth and long life, too. There must be other methods.”
“You want me to have immortality?”
“Almost as much as I want it for myself.”
I choose to ignore the “almost” and cling to the rest. Proof that he cares.
He wants me to live. Wants it so badly that he’s willing to seek out a way to perpetuate my existence. From what he’s told me, he’s never gone that far for anyone else.
It’s the reassurance I needed, the confirmation I was craving back at the beach. The evidence that I’m not just one of the bodies, one of the many circling him like planets caught in the pull of a lethally beautiful sun.
I’m special. And if he can care about me like that, there’s hope for him.
My hand moves across the sheets until my knuckles bump gently against his ribs, his bare, warm skin. My burns twinge a little, but Ikeep going. I’ve had tons of tattoos—a little pain can’t stop me when I want something badly enough.
Scooting closer, I slide my fingertips up his side, over his breast, my palm skimming across his nipple. His chest lifts and falls under my hand, tenuous rapid breaths. He doesn’t stop me as I sit beside him, stroking his skin.
My fingers trace his collarbones, then wander his breastbone, sliding beneath the sheet, down to the lightly tensed muscles of his abdomen. Along the groove where the slab of stomach muscle meets his hip bone. Over his strong thigh and then up the inner thigh, toward the heightened heat I can feel, the rigid part of him that’s tenting the sheet.
“Basil.” His smooth voice curls around my name. “Do you want me to fuck you?”
I hesitate, a bare inch from touching himthere.
“My expectations are always too high,” I whisper.
“I’ll surpass them or die trying.”
I release a breathless laugh. “People don’t die from sex.”
