Page 22 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

The roof is empty, Vancouver spread out below in glittering lights like fallen stars.

The wind immediately whips at my dress, pulling my carefully pinned hair free, and I kick off my silver heels, needing to feel something real under my feet.

The concrete is cold, grounding, real in a way nothing else feels right now.

I climb onto the ledge.

Not because I want to jump.

I don't have a death wish. I just need to feel something—the danger, the height, the possibility.

Need to remember that I'm alive, that I'm more than just a replacement for the woman downstairs with his child.

The wind pulls at my dress, making it billow like wings, and for a moment, I understand why people jump. Not for death, but for those few seconds of flight.

His son.

Varrick has a son.

With her.

With the woman who carved her initials into his hip like he was cattle, like she owned him.

Who betrayed him to his enemies.

Who he loved enough to let live when everyone knows Varrick Bane doesn't leave loose ends.

And she kept this from him.

Kept his child a secret for five years, raised him somewhere, somehow, while Varrick built his empire, not knowing he had an heir.

The cruelty of it is breathtaking.

"Get the fuck down."

His voice comes from behind me, carefully controlled, but I can hear the fear underneath.

Good. Let him be afraid for once.

I don't turn around. "Why? If she's your forever, what am I?"

"Rosalynn, get down from the fucking ledge."

"Answer the question."

"You're going to fall."

"Maybe I want to." I spread my arms, letting the wind catch the dress. "Maybe falling would be better than being second choice."

I hear him move closer, his footsteps careful on the gravel. "You want to have this conversation while you're standing on a ledge forty stories up?"

"Seems as good a place as any." The wind pulls harder at my dress, and I have to adjust my balance. "Did you know? About the boy?"

"Yes." The word is raw, honest, and something I didn’t expect.

"Do you believe her? That he's yours?"

"Look at him." His voice cracks slightly. "He has my eyes, my mother's nose, the Bane curse written all over him. He's mine."

The confirmation hurts more than uncertainty would have. "So, she wins. She gave you something I never can—a child. A legacy. A piece of yourself that will outlive you."

"Get down, and we'll talk about this."

"Talk about what? How I'm just the virgin you played with while waiting for your real family to return?" I laugh, but it comes out broken, carried away by the wind. "God, I'm so stupid. I thought... I actually thought..."

"Thought what? "

I turn then, balancing carefully on the narrow ledge, and find him closer than expected.

Still in his tux, bow tie undone, jacket discarded somewhere, looking devastating and destroyed all at once.

His hair is messed from running his hands through it, and his eyes—his eyes are wild with fear.

"I thought I mattered . I thought when you touched me, when you took my virginity, when you said I was yours... I thought it meant something. I thought I was enough."

"It meant everything." He climbs up onto the ledge beside me, and my heart stops. "What are you doing?"

"You jump, I jump after you." He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it because even now, even with my heart breaking, his touch is home. "You live, and I live for you."

"Pretty words."

"The truth." He pulls me closer, both of us balanced on the edge of everything, the city lights below us like a promise or a threat. "You're my choice. She was my curse."

"She has your son."

His free hand cups my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone. "You want to know the difference between you and her?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

"She took everything. My trust, my love, my ability to feel.

And gave nothing back but scars. You give everything and ask for nothing.

She was a performance, every word calculated for effect.

You're the truth, even when it hurts. She was my past, a mistake I've been paying for in blood and nightmares.

You're my future, the only good thing in my life I didn't have to take by force. "

"Your past just showed up with your child."

"And my future is standing on a ledge in a red dress that's been driving me insane all night, thinking she doesn't matter when she's the only thing in my life that does."

"You haven't touched me in days."

"Because I've been trying to protect you.

There are things happening—" He stops, jaw clenching.

"After the Corsinis, there are questions about my leadership.

About my weaknesses. About you. Someone's been spreading rumors that I've gone soft, that loving you has made me vulnerable.

I thought distance would keep you safe. I thought if I could just get through this threat?—"

"I don't want safe. I want you."

Something in him snaps.

He kisses me, hard and desperate, forty stories above the city with death a step away in any direction.

His mouth claims mine like he's trying to prove something to me, to himself, to the universe that's constantly trying to tear us apart.

I kiss him back with everything I have—all my hurt, my need, my love I haven't spoken aloud.

The wind whips around us, making us sway, and he pulls me tighter against him, like he can keep us both anchored through sheer will.

"Inside," he growls against my mouth. "Now."

We climb down together, and the moment our feet hit the roof, he's on me.

His hands are everywhere—in my hair, pulling pins free until it tumbles down my back, on my waist, pulling me against him so hard I can barely breathe, framing my face as he kisses me like a man drowning.

He backs me against the safety door, the metal cold against my exposed back.

His mouth moves to my neck, teeth scraping against the sensitive skin, and I gasp at the sensation.

"Do you know what it did to me," he says between kisses, his voice rough with want, "seeing you in this dress? Knowing what's underneath? Knowing I've touched every inch of you but couldn't tonight? Watching other men look at you and knowing they were imagining what you'd look like out of it?"

"Then touch me now."

He spins me around, pressing me face-first against the door.

I hear his zipper, feel the silk of my dress being pushed up to my waist with desperate hands.

His fingers hook into my underwear, and I hear the fabric tear.

"Varrick!"

"I'll buy you more." His hand slides between my legs, finding me already wet, already ready, my body responding to him even through my anger and hurt. "So responsive. Even when you're furious with me."

"I always want you," I gasp as his fingers find that spot that makes me see stars, that he learned so well at the safe house.

"I need you," he says, and I hear something broken in his voice. "Need to be inside you. Need to claim you. Need to remind us both who you belong to."

"Then take me."

He enters me in one smooth thrust, and I cry out at the fullness, the perfection of it.

This is nothing like our first time.

No carefulness to this at all. This is desperate, claiming, two people trying to merge into one while the ghost of his past lingers forty stories below.

His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise as he sets a punishing pace.

Each thrust pushes me against the door, the metal cold against my overheated skin.

One of his hands tangles in my hair, pulling my head back so he can kiss my neck, my jaw, any skin he can reach.

"Mine," he growls with each thrust. "Not hers. Not theirs. Mine."

"Yours," I agree, pushing back against him, meeting his desperation with my own. "Only yours. Always yours."

His hand comes around to find that sensitive bundle of nerves, and I shatter, his name a scream on my lips that the wind carries away.

He follows me over, my name a prayer and a curse as he empties himself inside me, his teeth sinking into my shoulder to muffle his own cry.

We stay there for a moment, breathing hard, still connected, his weight pressing me against the door.

His arms come around me, holding me like I might disappear if he lets go.

I can feel his heart racing against my back, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.

Then he turns me around, kisses me soft and sweet, such a contrast to the desperate coupling of moments before.

His hands are gentle as they smooth my dress back down, as they try to fix my destroyed hair.

"You're not a replacement," he says against my lips. "You're not a distraction. You're not a payment. You're everything. Do you understand?"

"She has your child."

"And I'll deal with that. I'll be a father. I'll figure out how to navigate this, but that doesn't change us. Doesn't change what you are to me."

"What am I?"

He pulls back to look at me, and his eyes are fierce with something that might be love.

"You're the woman who found ten million dollars in my books and saved my empire from bleeding out.

Who stands up to men twice her size without flinching.

Who gave me her virginity like it was a gift instead of a transaction.

Who stands on ledges in red dresses and makes me want to jump just to follow her down.

Who makes me feel things I thought Sienna had killed in me. "

"That's insane."

"So is love." The word hangs between us, heavy and real.

"I love you, Rosalynn. Not because your uncle sold you to me.

Not because you're mine by contract. Because you choose to be mine every day.

Because you see my darkness and don't run.

Because you make me want to be better than the monster I am. "

"I love you too," I whisper, the words escaping before I can stop them. "Even with complicated ex-girlfriends and surprise children and a world that wants to destroy us."

He kisses me again, softer now, and helps me fix my appearance as best we can.

My hair is beyond saving, wild around my face. My lips are swollen, my neck marked with his teeth.

Anyone who sees us will know exactly what we've been doing, but it doesn’t matter.

The only thing that matters is the fact that we’re together.