Page 76 of Filthy Little Fix

I sigh. "You're making this hard, mister."

His gaze narrows. "Now."

I bite back a smile and obey.

He towels himself dry. I take the soap and finish my shower, running it over my increasingly sore muscles. New marks are already forming—purplish bruises on my hips where his fingers squeezed.

I wash away the remnants of him and the blood.

When I'm done, he's already back in the room. I dry myself, towel the excess water from my hair, and apply a new dressing to the bitten palm of my hand. I walk back into the room with the towel wrapped around me, putting every fresh mark on display for him.

He watches me from the leather armchair. His blazer is gone, and his clothes are no longer soaking wet, just damp enough to cling to his frame. I can trace the lines of muscle, the black ink of his tattoos beneath the fabric. It's an aphrodisiac.

I put on whatever clothes Luca left for me one day—clothes in my size that still seem far too loose. I've been underweight for a long time. I don't care. I get dressed in front of him. He's already seen everything there is to see.

The moment I'm done, he speaks. "Bed. Now."

I don't fight it. A half-smile is my only rebellion, getting in bed and pulling the thick covers over me. I settle into the mattress. It's softer than mine—I've gotten used to it as best I can, at this point—and definitely more expensive.

He stays still. Is he going to watch me all night?

I stare at the ceiling. The room is poorly lit by the crack under the door, with the broken lamp now gone. With the adrenaline fading, the marks begin to ache. The wound I inflicted on my own palm, the bite on my neck, the bruises on my hips, the fissure between my legs. That doesn't stop my exhaustion. The throbbing of that molar was much more potent than this. What's truly keeping me from closing my eyes and blacking out is the crash. The dopamine is gone. All that's left is a chronic serotonergic dysfunction. That, and him. Watching me exist. He is the anchor in my fucked-up chemistry. The only thing tethering me to the moment.

It's enough to hold on.

I turn over in bed. Towards him. I could get used to this, to this view. To admiring him with no filter at all.

"You know, no one ever cared if I ate," I say. "If I slept, if I'd jump off a fucking overpass. Only you. A little scary, don't you think?"

A grunt. "Don't start."

He thinks I'm provoking him. How funny. "It's true. My mother thought I was a biological mistake. She was afraid of me. But you make it seem like I have some value."

His face isn't so tense. He's listening to me, and I recognize the Don in a slight furrow of his brow. Always serious, always authoritarian.

"You talk too much shit."

I smile. It's true.

Indifference is my normal. My mother looked at me like someone staring at a sick animal in the middle of the road. With care, with loathe, with pity. Sometimes fear. She wasn't a bad mother. But a child who doesn't play with others, who doesn't cry at funerals, who expresses nothing when hit scared her. She saw the aberration that Dante sees. An incurable disease.

I don't show this side to others. Classmates, coworkers—Nicole, Chad. They'd be afraid. I spare them. I pretend. I have to.

But Dante doesn't pull away. He touches me. He invades me. He gives me what I need to know that I'm real, that I exist. The disgust is, too, a form of recognition. And this.Concern.

I slide a hand over the new bruises. His signature.

"Mister," I call out, and repeat, teasing him with a formality that never existed between us, "Mr. Volkov."

A low growl from the chair. He's beautiful when he's impatient.

"If you're not going to come to bed with me, will you give me a goodnight kiss?" I provoke. "Or I won't be able to sleep."

He shakes his head. The words are a tired reflex. "Shut the fuck up, Nyx."

I laugh. "Anything for you."

He glares at me. The sudden intensity sends a shiver down my spine. Then, he grips the arms of the chair and stands up. He, massive, approaches me in his damp clothes, in his visible muscles.