Page 64 of Filthy Little Fix

I move. I take the few steps separating us, stopping in front of his chair. I stare at the empty energy drink cans, the cold coffee remnants.

"When was the last time you ate something that didn't come out of a can or a plastic bag?"

He frowns. "I… I don't know. Today at lunch, maybe."

"A tuna paste sandwich doesn't count."

I look at his thin body, his hunched posture.

"And sleeping? Is that part of your ‘bad health' plan? Killing yourself from exhaustion?"

"You… gave me deadlines?—"

"Fuck the fucking deadlines. When you finish this," I order, pointing to the tablet I gave him, "you're going to the kitchen. You're going to eat a real meal. And then, you're going to bed. Eight hours. No screens."

I move closer, until I'm hovering over him. I lower myself to his level. I force him to look me in the eyes.

"Listen here," I snarl. "You're not going back to any fucking overpass. Never again."

I see the confusion in his eyes, the way he tries to process my order.

"This isn't a request, Leonel. It's anorder."

Nyx's mask cracks. The smile, the audacity, the armor of indifference… everything falls apart. For a second, I see only the exhausted boy behind it, the boy from the overpass, looking at me with a raw vulnerability.

His eyes fix on mine, confused, exhausted, and reverent. He leans forward.

He kisses me.

Soft, hesitant. He kisses me withadoration, and his cold fingers slowly slide along the contour of my jaw.

I should push him away. I should reassert my dominance, I should remind him who's in command.

But I can't.

Instead, I touch the back of his neck, entwine my fingers in his hair, and pull him to me, shattering the gentleness of that hesitation. I force his lips apart, yet it isn't enough to erase what he told me. It isn't enough to drown his broken glass edges, and they cut me, they cut me everywhere.

And he kisses me with the desperation of someone who only found a reason to exist in this life because I told him he couldn't throw it away. He kisses me, and Ihateit because it breaks every wall I built, because Ineedthis just as much as he does.

"No viaducts and no Nicole," he murmurs against me. "I can work with that."

I push him back, pinning him against the backrest of his chair, and it takes every shred of my self-control not to tear his shirt open. "Don't fucking say her name."

Nyx laughs softly. "I'll say yours. I'llscreamit if you want me to."

"Nyx—"

"Dante," he whispers my name like a prayer. He runs his hands over my back, my neck, as if he can't stop touching me. And fuck, I want that.

"Don't—"

He silences me, pulling my shirt and kissing me again, and again, and again, and every attempt at control I have goes to hell.

My hands are on his waist, pulling him closer, and I'm about to slam him against the fucking wall when an insistent vibration starts in my pocket.

"Fuck," I curse, pulling my face back a few inches to check my cell.

Svetlana.