I tried to think of a response quick enough, but all coherent thoughts left me as Phoebe began striding toward me, a look of annoyance on her face.
Truth be told, I didn’t know.
But God, I hoped I found out. And I hoped, especially as my cock continued to brush behind my zipperfor the first time that night—with her presence in front of me rather than in my own head as I fisted myself—that the beast inside my mind would finally get to play. Would finally get toclaim.
I was tired of watching her from the shadows like she wasn’t already mine.
Consequences be damned.
THREE
PHOEBE
Before my mother left us—my father, me, and the entire gang who called her family—she had braided my hair with trembling fingers and told me stories of how she and my father met.
She had said that she was a good girl and never expected to marry someone who was so much darker than her. In her exact words, with a smoky laugh as her fingers combed through my wet strands, she told me, “You know, my parents always wanted me to marry someone in a suit and I ended up with leather. But Iwouldn’t take it back for a second. Look what it gave me, bug.”
When I had asked her why she was telling me this, she said, “Because I’m not going to be here for much longer, baby girl. You know that. But I want you to know that no matter who you fall in love with, I’m sure I’d like ‘em. Just make sure to give them hell for me, yeah?”
I had crawled into her bed, just fourteen-years-old, and cried into her hair.
I didn’t want my momma to go.
But life never listened to words like that.
She died just a under a year later.
The most admirable thing I found about my mother was that she refused to rot away in a hospital bed, even as her cancer was diagnosed at stage four. The doctors said it wasn’t really worth the fight. It had progressed so much, the form of cancer so aggressive, that there was nothing that they could do. Or rather, the trauma of the treatment would be too aggressive. My momma didn’t want to spend the rest of her days suffering when the result wasn’t even guaranteed.
Why treat a sick woman when, even if it all worked, she wouldn’t live but a few months longer, anyway?
I couldn’t blame her for it at all.
So, she sat on the porch with my dad and her family every night, until the nights ran out.
And every day since then, I made sure to live up to her promise.
Give them hell for me.
Aureo watched me from his position on the infamous leather couch in the darkest corner of the cavern, the spot where nearly all light, even time, seemed to cease from the seclusion. If it weren’t for the three spotlights surrounding the couch—spotlights we only installed just recently—then it would be nearly impossible to see him.
He was a man of the dark. And he was watching me.
Hypocritical as fuck, considering he was once again wearing a mask. He would always watch the world around him, but yet, would never let anyone watch him back.
I fucking hated when men watched me like I was something to eat. It enraged me.
And yet, heat blossomed throughout my abdomen and chest from knowing that I captured Aureo’s attention. Like I was the only woman on the dance floor.
That enraged me, too. There was no reason I should feel this way towards him. I hadn’t spoken to him in years, besides the occasional eye-glance or awkwardmutter when we ended up at the same bar. I could have sworn that he hated my very existence. But fuck, the feeling of being watched by him made me freeze like a deer in headlights, experience the crash and burn, only to revive itself after being hit by a bolt of lightning.
And that scared me—terrified me—because that deer would have to be an act of God or evil to survive something so intense, and I didn’t know if I was capable of that.
I didn’t know if anyone was capable of that.
It had to be the alcohol through my bloodstream.
“Just go.” Echo laughed in my ear. I hadn’t even realized that I stopped dancing, or even that she had stopped dancing, too. People were starting to give us agitated looks for just standing stock-still and taking up space on the concrete floor for no good reason. Someone was bound to throw their drink at my head if I stayed there.
