I flex my bruised fist, feel the deep pull of split knuckles, but the pain is nothing. Nothing compared to the way her scent is still burned into me. The way her cunt smelled after she came thinking about whatever the fuck she was thinking about.
I tell myself it has to be the seasons room. My hand on her breast. My cock grinding against her. That’s why she fell apart soviolently on that stool. That’s why she was still dripping when I smelled her.
It has to be. Because if it’s not…
I shove the thought down before it can finish.
Pleasure has always felt like poison. Like something that turns you into the thing you hate most. I learned that lesson young, and I learned it ugly. But this—wanting her, watching her, breathing in the evidence of what I did to her—this is different. This wanting gets into my blood without permission. It made me ease her shirt down in the middle of a confrontation. It made me watch her make herself come. It made me stand in her doorway and inhale her orgasm like it was the only air I’d ever need.
I wanted to fuck her.
I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone the way I want her. I still do.
And that truth is the most dangerous thing in this house.
My phone lights up on the desk beside me. I look at it, recognize the number, and my jaw tightens, every thought of sex and fingers and cum out the goddamn window.
I let it ring. Once. Twice. A third time.
She’ll wait. She always waits. Patience is the one thing she has in unlimited supply.
I pick up. Say nothing.
Her voice slides into my ear like warm honey over a razor. “You followed the breadcrumbs I left for you. Such a clever boy.”
Dean.I knew the moment I found the trail that it was too clean, too visible, left for me like an invitation you can’t refuse without being rude.
“You found them faster than I expected.” I can hear the smile—the practiced one, all teeth and calculation. “Though I really should stop underestimating you. You found it faster than I anticipated.”
Did I?I found it in forty-eight hours, which means shewantedme to find it in forty-eight hours.
“You never cease to surprise me.” The warmth in her voice is the kind that has never once been earned and has never once been real. “You don’t even want to know what I offered him?”
Money. Power. Whores. I couldn’t give a fuck.
“Oh, come on,” she continues. “You and I both know you liked it. When you get rid of all the pieces like he never existed, it means you relished it.”
I give her nothing. Not a syllable. Not even a goddamn breath.
She lets out a soft, fond laugh that makes my skin crawl. “Still so quiet. My beautiful, silent boy.”
The words slither under my skin like old poison, the same endearment she used when I was broken enough to be molded. It reminds me how perfectly she taught me to stay quiet while she sharpened the knife.
I don’t flinch, but inside, something ancient snarls.
“I can’t seem to trace this call.” A pause. The sound of someone recalibrating behind a smile. “Have you been playing with new tech?”
Finally, I snarl. “Old habits.”
“Mmm. There he is,” she hums. “But you sound different. You have that edge in your voice. The one you always get when you’re about to disappoint me.”
My back teeth press together. I think about the seasons room. About split knuckles and black sheets and a woman who asked me what happened to me in a voice that wasn’t clinical, wasn’t professional, wasn’t building a case—just asked, like the answer mattered to her personally. I think about how much damage this woman on the phone could do with that information.
“Now, why would I want to disappoint you?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” She lets it sit. She’s always been good at letting things sit, and grow, and simmer. “You know what your problem is?” She doesn’t wait. “You’ve always believed that if you’re clever enough, fast enough, careful enough, you can outrun the way things are. The way they have to be.”
I don’t respond.
