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Beautiful.

A wrecked, claimed sort of beautiful.

One I don’t want to look away from, which is confusing and decidedly out of character for me.

I don’t use sex to connect with people. Quite the opposite. I use it to create distance. To put up stronger walls.

It’s been like that ever since I was thirteen.

Sinceher.

Since she showed me things I was far too young to see.

I flinch, shaking my head.

“I don’t,” I growl quietly.

Milena arches a brow, smirking faintly as she eyes the evidence between my lips.

“Well…notoften,” I add with a slight grin.

“Just special occasions?” she teases, her voice still raspy.

“Something like that.”

She winces as she rolls onto her stomach, a flash of pain making her jaw clench a little as she props herself up on her elbows.

“Same,” she says. “Just here and there.” Her eyes drop to the smoke in my mouth. “Could I…”

I nod. Without even thinking about it, I take one more drag, pluck the cigarette from my lips, then pass it to her.

Her fingers brush mine as she takes the smoke and lifts it up. I watch, more mesmerized than I should be as her soft, swollen lips wrap around it, another wince rippling over her face as she draws in a breath, making the tip glow.

It feels weirdly intimate to see her wrap her lips around the same place where mine just were.

As if everything we just did—the chase, fucking her raw, filling her with my cum, spilling it all over her face and then kissing it off, wasn’t “intimate” enough.

It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t shake that idea as I watch her take another slow drag before passing the cigarette back to me.

“Thanks.”

I nod, unable to look away as she rests her cheek on her folded forearms.

“So… How do you have the code to this house and free rein of it?”

“Probably because it’smyhouse.”

Her head lifts—maybe a bit too quickly. She winces again. Her gaze holds mine.

“Wait, seriously?”

I nod. “Bought it a few years ago.”

Her brows knit. “Why?”

I shrug and look away. It's easier and simpler than saying something like “haunted mansions are cool”, or “because I used to walk past ‘the old Greymoor place’ and always thought it was beautiful”.

Or “one day, I’d like to restore this place to its former glory and call it home, as opposed to the mausoleum I currently share with the ghosts of my past”.