Page 11 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

I fall silent, but we both know what I was going to say.

The word hangs unspoken between us, four letters that would change everything if given voice.

He bends, starts gathering the photos with sharp, efficient movements.

I still have the one of teenage him, and I clutch it tighter.

"I'm keeping this," I tell him.

"No."

"Yes." I move a few steps away from him. "Maybe someday you'll want to remember that hope existed once."

When I turn back, he's watching me with an expression I've never seen before.

Raw. Vulnerable. Almost broken.

"You're going to regret this," he says quietly. "Getting close to me. Seeing something in me that isn't there."

"Maybe. Or maybe you'll regret pushing away the first person who's ever looked at you and seen more than the monster."

I leave him there, surrounded by the photos he can't quite bring himself to burn, the ghost of our kiss still burning on my lips.

Back in my room, I stand in front of the mirror and study my reflection.

My lips are swollen, pink from his attention.

My hair is messed up from his fingers.

There's a small mark on my neck where his stubble scraped against my skin—not quite a bruise, but evidence that what happened was real.

I touch each piece of evidence, cataloging the ways he's marked me without meaning to.

Or maybe he did mean to.

Maybe that's what the kiss was—him marking me as his in a way that has nothing to do with my father's debt and everything to do with the hunger I saw in his eyes.

I think about the scars covering his body, each one a story of survival.

The S.C. carved into his hip, a story of betrayal.

The hopeful boy in the photograph, a story of loss.

And now me, apparently. Another story he's trying not to write.

But I'm done being passive in my own narrative.

Done letting other people decide what I'm worth, what I deserve, what I'm capable of.

If Varrick won't teach me what I'm asking for, I'll figure it out myself.

I pull out my laptop, then pause.

Am I really about to research... this? Physical intimacy? Desire? The mechanics of what comes after kissing?

The thought makes me laugh—bitter and short.

Twenty-five years old and googling intimacy like a teenager.

But that's what I am in this arena, isn't it?

Inexperienced. Innocent. Ignorant.

The search results are overwhelming.

Clinical articles that make everything sound mechanical.

Romance novels that make everything sound impossible.

Forums where people discuss things I don't have words for yet.

But there's one thread that catches my attention: "How to know if you're ready."

The responses vary, but one stands out: "You're ready when the fear of not trying becomes greater than the fear of trying."

I close the laptop, processing the words.

Am I afraid of Varrick? Yes.

But not in the way I was afraid of Marco or Uncle Enzo or Tommy Fitzgerald.

This is different.

This is the fear of falling with no guarantee that someone will catch you.

The fear of wanting something you don't understand.

The fear of being vulnerable with someone whose capacity for violence is matched only by their capacity for unexpected gentleness.

It's the kind of fear that feels like anticipation.

A soft knock at my door interrupts my thoughts.

I know it's him before I open it—something about the careful rhythm, the pause between knocks like he's giving me time to prepare or refuse.

He's put on a shirt, but his hair is still damp, and he's carrying a tray.

Because of course he is. Even after what just happened, he's making sure I eat.

"I'm not hungry," I say.

"Liar." He enters anyway, sets the tray on my dresser. It's simple tonight—soup, bread, water. Comfort food. "Eat."

"Is this what we do now? Pretend that didn't happen?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He turns to face me, and the look in his eyes makes my breath catch. "Because if we don't pretend, if we acknowledge what's happening here, I'm going to do something we'll both regret."

"What if I don't want to pretend?"

"You don't know what you want."

"Stop telling me what I want." The words come out sharper than I want them to.

"Everyone my whole life has told me what I think, what I feel, what I want.

Uncle Enzo told me I wanted to be sold. Marco told me I wanted to be hurt.

You're telling me I don't know my own mind.

But I do. I know exactly what I want, Varrick Bane. "

"And what's that?"

"You." The word hangs between us, simple and complicated all at once. "I want you to stop treating me like I'm going to break. I want you to stop deciding what's best for me. I want you to teach me what comes after kissing, and I want you to stop looking at me like wanting me is a crime."

He's across the room before I finish speaking, his hands on either side of my face, holding me still.

"You don't understand what you're asking for," he says, his voice rough. "I'm not gentle. I'm not patient. I take what I want, and I want everything."

"Then take it."

"Not from you. Not like this."

"Why?"

"Because you're—" He stops, jaw clenching.

"I'm what? Your property? Your payment? Your?—"

"Mine," he interrupts. "You're mine, and that means something different than ownership. It means protection. It means I care. It means not taking advantage of innocence just because I can."

"What if I want you to?"

His thumb brushes across my cheekbone. "Then I'd say Stockholm Syndrome is a hell of a thing."

The words should hurt, but there's no cruelty in them. Just resignation. Like he's already decided how this story ends.

"Is that what you think this is?" I ask. "That I'm confused? That I'm mistaking captivity for connection?"

"Aren't you?"

I think about it, really think about it. Am I drawn to him because he's my captor? Because he represents safety in a world where I have no other options? Or is it something else—something about the way he sees me, protects me, challenges me to be more than the ghost my father raised me to be?

"Maybe it started that way," I admit. "Maybe at first you were just the devil I didn't know, better than the devils I did. But that's not what this is now."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know." The honesty feels like freedom. "But I want to find out. Don't you?"

He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer. Then, finally: "Yes."

The admission seems to cost him something.

His hands drop from my face, and he steps back, rebuilding the distance between us.

"But not tonight. Not when you're high on your first real kiss and I'm..." He runs a hand through his hair. "Eat your soup. Sleep. Tomorrow we'll pretend this didn't happen."

"And if I can't pretend?"

He pauses at the door. "Then we'll deal with that tomorrow too."

He leaves, and I'm alone with cooling soup and the lingering scent of his cologne.

I touch my lips again, remembering the heat of his mouth, the way he'd groaned when I'd kissed him, like I was breaking him and putting him back together all at once.

I pick up the spoon, taste the soup he brought me.

It's perfect, like always.

He takes care of me in all these small ways, as if each meal, each locked door, each broken nose in my defense is building toward something neither of us knows how to name.

Three days ago, he gave me my first kiss—gentle as butterfly wings, careful as prayer.

Tonight, I gave him my second—clumsy and eager and absolutely certain.

Tomorrow, we'll pretend none of this happened.

But I can still taste copper and whiskey on my lips, still feel the S.C. carved into his hip under my fingertips, still see the hope in that photograph I refused to let him burn.

This life with Varrick isn't the prison I thought it was.

It's something else entirely.

Something that might destroy us both.

Or save us.

I suppose tomorrow we'll start finding out which.