I hugged my arms around myself. I’d always tried to be kind. It had been easy to see what others needed. Maybe that’s why I’d been so good at sex work. My brain stalled out at taking that thought any further. Nope, we were done with dick.
I moved on from the tweenager to the girl I’d been when I first came to Deadwater. Almost at my full height, honey hair in a ponytail, on my grandfather’s arm to visit his office.
I switched my view to a closer-by bridge, a Gothic, dark structure in the dusk. One I’d crossed when I’d returned to the city in my twenties. I’d had a boob job, a slutty short skirt, lip filler that I’d since had dissolved. I’d been certain that no one who’d known me as a kid would see that girl in the adult. And I’d been right. They’d either stare or tut, depending on their gender and sexuality.
My focus slid back to my reflection. In leggings and a skeleton girls’ detective agency t-shirt Cassie had gifted me for my good work with the files, I had my hair up, the platinum warmer at the roots where my true colour peeked through. The original me. Except I had no idea who I was anymore.
Not the innocent child I’d liked, not the heir Mila needed me to be, and not the sex worker Tyler had become obsessed with.
My identity had been lost.
Behind me, the door swung open.
Tyler’s slow steps brought him across the room, his reflection closing in. He circled me and leaned on the edge of the brick. His gaze linked with mine. “Hey, doll.”
I’d missed him. So much. I needed him to hold me but couldn’t find the words.
He tried again. “I’ll be out for much of the night.”
I forced a nod, not wanting details. It was better if I didn’t know. “Just not…”
“The rape enabler? Got it. But anyone else is fair game. I have half the crew helping. We’ll clean up. Once they’re all caged, we can talk through your systematic destruction.”
My smile was a weak attempt. I didn’t feel so brave anymore. Not when faced with an identity crisis.
Then I picked up on the stress on Tyler’s brow. Not tiredness, as energy coiled tightly around him, but from the weight of a hundred decisions he was making. To anyone else, he’d appear calm and together. But I’d been sneaking glances at him forever. I’d guessed when he felt the world was being a little too loud.
Perhaps we needed each other.
I took his hand and dragged him with me down the hall. Tyler was my other major problem, since I’d discovered the feelings that lived in my heart, that fluttered about my chest and warmed me from the inside out. We’d gone about everything backwards. We’d missed the dating stage, the steady get-to-know-you. I needed some of that. An honest relationship built in layers, not jumping from stolen looks in the hall to all-out ownership.
In the bedroom, leaving everything else a safe distance away, I pushed up on my toes and kissed him. He held still, his lips matching mine but that infuriating control unbreaking.
I wanted him gone for me. To be so hopelessly lost, I was the only thing he knew for sure. If this was a relationship, we both had the right to own the other. To take what was needed. Yet how could I do that when he’d never ask?
Then there was the darker, more twisted thought that kept hammering away at the back of my brain. What if his obsession went away? I couldn’t fall for him then lose him. It would end me.
Those walls had to come down.
“Pick me up,” I whispered.
Tyler obeyed, easily collecting me into his arms, his hands sliding from my thighs to my ass. I wound my legs around his waist and didn’t stop the kiss, only ramping up my efforts with an urgency to get closer.
It was his rule about not coming that fucked me up. By deliberately holding back, he was unable to do the one thing I needed. Tyler wanted to possess, protect, and own me. But itwasn’t just that. He’d been attracted to me before, when I’d been the bouncy, confident, faking-it version of myself.
If I couldn’t be the innocent girl I once was, and I couldn’t go back to the woman I’d been selling, then I would be something else entirely. His undoing.
I kissed him harder, a new fear appearing in my mind.
What about his trigger? His big emotional breakdowns that turned into bloodshed and kidnap. He’d told me he didn’t have sex often. He’d described not liking the feelings it created. That couldn’t last.
I needed to work out what pushed him over the edge then keep doing that until he lost it on me. If he stayed after, I could maybe believe he was mine and that we might have a chance.
I had to break Tyler’s rule.
“On the bed,” I whispered.
Tyler paced the few steps and lowered me down. I rose onto my knees and reached for his buckle.
