Page 42 of Dirty Game

"That's care. Maybe even?—"

"Rosalynn." My name is a warning.

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?