“Is there no towel in here, either?”she asks, smacking her palm flat against the wall now and sliding it upwards until she’s reached the empty towel bar.
“Towels are all folded and packed away right now.No one’s been living here for months.”
“So, where are they, then?Do I just have to traipse naked through the halls until I find the linen closet?”
Not with Robbie here, that’s for fucking sure.
He’s always been loyal to our family.
And yet, I would have absolutely no problem carving his eyes from his head and crushing them like grapes if he were to see her, even accidentally, without her clothing.
“I’ll get you one.”
There’s a large linen closet not far from this bathroom’s door.She won’t be out of my sight for long.I head for it, selecting a fluffy white towel from the top of one of the perfect piles inside, then return.In the bathroom, Aurora is still behind the curtain, waiting.But she’s let the curtain fall all the way closed now, her face obscured.
“Here,” I grunt, holding the towel towards the curtain.Her hand swims out again, mermaid-like as it sways back and forth, reaching blindly for the towel.I almost step back so she can’t reach it.Almost force her to come out from behind her shiny champagne curtain to retrieve it.So that she has to come naked before me, soaked hair and shining skin, pink nipples puffy from the heat, or maybe puckering up now, the longer she stands there dripping.
Her fingers connect with the plush cotton, close around the towel, and pull it behind the shower curtain with her.I think I hear her mumble, “Thanks.”A moment later, she pulls the shower curtain all the way aside, the towel wrapped around her chest, falling just past her hips.She hasn’t dried her legs off yet.I watch, throat feeling like I’ve just swallowed a spoonful of ash, as glistening beads of moisture glide down the extraordinary lines of her flesh.Over and over, I imagine myself falling to my knees, placing my mouth against her ankle, the smooth place behind her knee, the perfect curve where the back of her thigh meets her ass.Sucking, licking, biting.
Fucking hell.Even with my body all fucked up from the opioids last night, even weakened and shaky and feeling like I got hit by that goddamn train instead of riding it, I’m on fucking fire for her.And she’s all wet.All that water on her skin, in her hair.I need her to douse me.
I need to put some fucking space between us, before I’ve got her up against the wall, towel torn away, cock straining to take again what I took last night.
Would she let those pretty, torturous tears spill out again this time?
Probably.
I force myself away from her, ruminating on what it means to make a perfect angel come and cry at the same time.Slamming the toilet lid down, I sit heavily, watching her as she pads to the marble counter, leaning over it to examine her face in the mirror.After taking a few moments to finger-comb her wet locks, she swears softly.The gauze at her temple is soaked.Grimacing, she removes it, crushing it into a white-and-red ball and throwing it into the bin beneath the counter.The wound at her temple is angry and red, and suddenly all thoughts of fucking her are gone, replaced with the acid boil of pure fucking fury.I start cracking my knuckles, one by one, but it doesn’t do shit.There’s no pressure valve for this feeling, no way to shut it off or let it out.Not without killing Messina.
I can’t remember the last time I was this fucking angry.I can’t remember the last time I felt this much of anything at all.
Eight.Eighteen.Thirty.
All the most vivid points of my life.
All the times when she was with me.
What would it be like, to go back to being half-dead now?To be nothing but what I’ve always been – a monster wearing the suit of a man, whose only sense of peace comes from pain.Blood.Broken fucking things.
I look at the broken skin at Aurora’s temple and there is no peace.My hands are fucking shaking.Again, I try to crack my knuckles.Again, nothing happens.
And it’s the nothing that kills me.That makes me feel like my entire being is going to split apart, atom by atom, if I keep fucking sitting here, staring at the place he hit her.
Aurora sees me coming in the mirror before I’ve even realized I’m moving.The reflection of her eyes changes, widening at my approach.
“Curse?”
She turns, startling backwards at the sight of my face.Her lower back hits the counter.I don’t give her a chance to steady herself, instead gripping her hips and lifting her until she’s seated in front of me.I settle myself between her splayed thighs, remembering the last time we were positioned like this, in Messina’s house, right after I’d slit his throat.
“What is it?”she breathes, blue and silver searching my face.“You don’t look right.”
Do I ever fucking look right?
I sure as hell don’t feel right.
Not when I am with her.
And not when I am without her.
