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“About my darker side?” I answer, refusing to shy away from the harsh realities of my past. “About the version of myself that decided certain lives were worth taking?”

I advance on her, my steps slow and heavy as I turn the corner of the counter that was protecting her from me. If she demands to hear this, she’ll look me in the eyes while she does. I reach up and catch her jaw between my fingers, making sure to keep my touch harsh enough that she doesn’t panic. I jerk her head up to look at me, and I find warm brown eyes that are rimmed with anything but fear. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.” Her answer is pure certainty and bravery, and I find myself wanting to kiss her for both.

“I killed my father when I was seventeen. He spent his entire life beating the shit out of people he considered to be weaker than him. He was so violent that my mother left before I turned one, so scared that he would come after her that she left her infant son behind. I was four the first time I went to the hospital with a broken arm. The breaks and bruises came more frequently after that. He was worse with my step-mother—taking out the majority of his rage on her until he finally pushed her down a flight of stairs. She never got back up.”

I take a long drink before continuing. “The cops couldn’t prove it was anything other than an accident, not that they really tried. My sister saw him push her, but the testimony of a scared seven year old didn’t mean shit back then. I told my dad I wasthe one who snitched to the cops, and I got the worst beating of my life that night. I had to skip two weeks of school just for the majority of the bruises, cuts, and swelling to heal. I eventually covered the scars on my back with tattoos, but sometimes I can still feel them, like the sick bastard etched them into my bones.”

Angélica holds my gaze, her eyes flickering with flames of fury for that little boy who couldn’t save himself. I’ll never regret being the one to put a knife in that little boy’s hand and teach him vengeance is better than fear.

“I didn’t mind the beatings so much. After a while, you just became numb to the pain. But when my sister turned twelve, something changed. Suddenly punishment didn’t mean the harsh fists we were all used to. The attention daddy dearest gave her was different and much fucking worse. The first night I found him lying in her bed, I didn’t even need to think about it. I walked into the kitchen and found the sharpest knife we had. Then I walked back into that fucking room and shoved the blade inside him so many times he looked like minced meat by the time I was done.”

I feel Angélica flinch in my hold, her body instinctively repelled by the detached callousness of my tone as I tell how I massacred my own father. But even as her body pulls away, there’s no disgust or fear in her gaze. No, her warm brown eyes are telling me that sick fuck deserved every damn stab he got.

“Naturally we had to call the cops at some point. I may have known how to kill a man, but I sure as fuck didn’t know how to hide a body. My sister and I claimed self-defense. The cops believed her this time because her blood was on the goddamn sheets. I was forced into therapy, but I didn’t serve time. I spent the last few months before I turned eighteen in the system, and my sister was adopted by a family who ended up being the best thing she ever had. She’s now ridiculously well-adjusted, and you’d never guess she was born and raised in hell.”

“What about you?” It’s the first question she’s asked since I started, and the normality of it throws me off balance.

“Me? I carried my fucked-up issues around on the inside, self-destructing whenever the noise in my head became too much. I escaped to Paris the first chance I got—desperate to leave behind that broken, helpless version of myself who waited too damn long to save himself. I had an old Parisian named Sophie take pity on me and teach me how to bake croissants at her boulangerie. I took every opportunity I had to learn and progress. I became sous at one of the most renowned restaurants in Paris. I stayed there until I learned everything I thought I could. Then I moved back to Chicago to start my own restaurant. I’ve done pretty well for myself since then. ”

“But did you ever heal?” There’s a sad crease between her brows, and I get the feeling my answer means more to her than it should.

I swallow down the urge to lie, offering her the truth as much as it strips me bare. “I heal every time you trust me to touch you. Every time you take my bullshit in the kitchen without breaking down. Every time you let me hurt you and beg me for more. Every time you look at me like you want me more than oxygen. Every time I feel your sweet cunt cling to me like you never want to let me go.”

I drag my thumb across her bottom lip, forcing the soft skin against her teeth. I press until her skin breaks for me, just like it did the very first night we met. Blood trickles down her lip, but she never pulls away or asks me to stop. If anything, she leans into my touch even more. “Christ, angel. You heal me more than years of bloodshed and vengeance ever could.”

Chapter Twenty-One

GREYSON

Ipull back, trying to pick up the rubble of the wall that used to stand between us and build it up higher than ever—a fortress to protect her just as much as me. But she doesn’t even let me lay the foundation of that boundary before she steps forward and stomps it all into the dust. Her hands are on my shoulders, so fragile and fearless as she drags my body against hers. I can’t even push her away by the time her mouth is on mine, her lips tasting like citrus and spice and blood.

Her tongue isn’t shy or inexperienced as it presses against the seam of my lips and splits them open, delving into my mouth like it has every goddamn right to be inside me. And maybe it fucking does. I allow her five seconds of control before taking the lead. I wrap one hand around her throat and slide the other under her leg, hitching her thigh over my hip so she can rub that sweet, bare pussy against me. She’s still not close enough.

Without breaking our kiss, I reach down and grab her underneath both thighs, hoisting her off the ground. I hear the echoing crash of glass in the distance, but I don’t pay any attention as she wraps her naked thighs around my waist and presses her bodyagainst me. Her hands fist my hair, clinging to me like she’s desperate to avoid tumbling to the floor, but she doesn’t know that I would never, ever let her fall. I splay my fingers across her back, holding her tightly so she knows she’s safe as long as she’s mine.

And then I kiss her like I’ve never kissed anyone else, every girl who came before her obliterated to dust and shadow with the smallest touch of her lips. I kiss her until my lungs are begging for air. I kiss her until my chest aches. I kiss her like she’s the home I’ve waited my whole goddamn life to find. And after so many years spent empty and hollow, I feel so whole that the fullness is excruciating—fucking splitting me open from the inside like an internal hemorrhage that won’t motherfucking stop.

I’ve never been a masochist, but this is torture I’d happily die from.

“Fuck me,” she pleads, her voice low and harsh as she continues to grind her body against me. “Fuck me, please.”

“I love to hear you beg, angel,” I growl, holding her tight in my arms while I spin us around. I kneel down and lower her to the floor on her back, her legs still wrapped around me as I hover over her. I slam my hands on either side of her head, trapping her beneath me. “Fuck,” I hiss when my palms land on thin shards of glass. Blood starts to flow before I have a chance to pull away.

“Shit, you’re lying on glass,” I gasp when I realize I’ve thrown her down into a minefield of sharp-edged pieces. Her back is pressed against the shattered crystal, the orangey-red of her spilled cocktail seeping into her dress. I try to pull her up, but she catches my face in her hands and drags me back down to meet her lips, my weight forcing her even harder into the glass.

“Keep going,” she breathes between searing kisses. Her hands slide down my abdomen and stroke the steel length between my thighs.

“It’ll cut you,” I argue in spite of wanting to fuck the shit out of her right now. I ignore my primal instincts and try to lift her up again.

“I don’t care. Keep going.” Before I can stop her, she has my belt unbuckled and my zipper down. And when her hand slips beneath my boxers and fists my aching cock, I can’t suppress the rumbling groan that leaves my throat.

“Angel,” I warn, my voice strained with the effort it takes to hold back. A flash of deep red catches my attention, and I notice that juice isn’t the only thing tainting the soft white of her dress—she’s bleeding, the glass cutting through the thin fabric at her sides and piercing her skin. “You’re already bleeding,” I hiss, anger leaching into my tone at the fact that her skin dared to break without my permission.

“I’m happy to bleed as long as youkeep fucking going,” she moans, her fingers smearing the wetness of my pre-cum over my shaft and stroking up and down.

Fuck me, I don’t think I’m strong enough to resist. I claw my hands down her shoulders, tearing at her dress until her heavy tits spill out. The dark caramel buds of her nipples are so hard I want to bite into them like they’re the perfect little hors d’oeuvre before the main course. I bend down and take one into my mouth, tearing at it with my teeth until she releases the sweetest little whimper.