Page 17 of Glass Rose (Where Roses Rot #1)

ELEVEN

SOFIA

Blood explodes across the room as the knife plunges into my father’s eye socket. The blade meets resistance, then slides through with a sick, wet sound that reverberates through my bones. His body goes slack, collapsing against me like some grotesque puppet with severed strings.

I killed him.

I killed my father.

I try to scream, but no sound emerges, just the crushing weight of his corpse pinning me down…

Down into darkness.

Down into silence.

Down into this horrifying loop.

Behind him, my mother’s corpse rises from the kitchen floor, intestines dropping from her gaping stomach wound. Her glassy eyes fix on me with accusation, mouth working silently as she staggers forward, arms outstretched.

I struggle beneath my father’s weight, lungs burning for air. “Please?—”

“You killed us both.” Her face morphs into something inhuman—features stretching, skin sloughing off in wet chunks. “You’ll kill them all.”

The scream finally breaks from my throat, raw and primal?—

A large palm seals my mouth, rendering it silent. My eyes fly open to darkness, heart hammering so hard it might crack my ribs. I’m still in the nightmare, still pinned beneath my father’s corpse with my mother’s mutilated body lurching toward me.

“Shh.” Gavin’s voice, low and steady, whispers against my ear. “You were dreaming.”

Reality filters back in fragments. Gavin’s solid weight above me on the narrow bed, naked from the waist up, and his hand still covering my mouth. My muscles unclench gradually as the nightmare recedes, leaving behind the sour taste of adrenaline.

“You with me?” His breath tickles the baby-hair on my temple as he places a soft kiss there.

I nod against his palm, and he releases me, his fingers ghosting down the column of my throat, calluses catching slightly on my skin.

“Your parents?”

Another nod. Words feel too heavy, too complicated. The memories of my father’s blood on my hands and my mother’s shredded body on the kitchen floor too fresh.

“What do you need?” His hand continues its downward path, skimming over my nipples.

“You know what I need.”

“Say it.” His voice hardens. “I spent fourteen months having things done to me without my consent. Everything between us happens because you ask for it. Clearly.”

“I need you to make me forget.”

“Well, then let me help you drive away the thoughts in that brilliant brain of yours.” His palm flattens against my stomach beneath the oversized t-shirt, lifting the material until my breasts are bared. “Just for a little while.”

“Please.” My voice cracks on the single word.

“Need you to be quiet.” He shifts above me, straddling my hips. “Others might hear. And I don’t share.”

I nod, biting my lower lip.

“Such a good girl for me.” He leans down, his teeth grazing my pulse point. “I can hear your heartbeat getting faster.”

My hands clutch at his shoulders, nails digging crescents into his skin. The slight pain makes him hiss as his mouth moves lower, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.

“Been thinking about this since this afternoon,” he confesses against my skin.

“Me too.”

His blue eyes lock with mine, something almost vulnerable flickering in their depths before it’s gone, replaced by hunger. One hand slides between my thighs, finding me already wet, and the corner of his mouth lifts in satisfaction. “This for me?”

I tug him up for a kiss instead of answering, our mouths colliding with breathless want while his fingers delve between my folds.

“Gavin,” I breathe, not sure if I’m begging him for physical release or something deeper—the temporary oblivion, the chance to feel something other than guilt and grief.

My hips rise to meet his touch, hungry for more pressure, more friction. More of him. His mouth captures mine again, swallowing my moans as his tongue mimics what his fingers are doing below. I’m drowning in sensation, my body’s response to him immediate and overwhelming.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he murmurs against my lips. “Is this what you needed? To be filled up and fucked until you can’t remember your own name? ”

“Please,” I beg.

“So polite.” His fingers tease my entrance, never quite giving enough. “Even when you’re soaking my hand, you still ask so nicely.”

“Gavin.” His name escapes me like a prayer. “Please.”

His low chuckle vibrates against my skin as he pushes two fingers inside me, the sudden invasion making me press my face into the pillow to muffle my moans. The rhythm he sets is slow, torturous.

“Eyes on me.” His fingers lock in place as he waits for compliance.

I force my heavy eyelids open, meeting his gaze through the darkness.

“This—” His thumb circles my clit once, making me whimper. “This belongs to me now. Understood?”

My skin burns as I nod, torn between shame and want while his fingers resume a relentless rhythm inside me.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful like this. All that control you carry around… gone.” He studies me with a predator’s focus, his movements slowing to an excruciating pace. “Say it. What’s mine, Sofia?”

“My—fuck—my body.” The admission unlocks something desperate in me. “Please don’t stop.”

“Not stopping. Just making sure you understand what’s happening here.”

His head dips, mouth closing over my nipple, and I arch off the bed like I’ve been shocked. His tongue swirls around the sensitive peak, teeth grazing just enough to force me to bite my lip hard against the urge to cry out.

“Pity, you have to be quiet.” He increases his pace. “I’d love to hear you scream my name.”

The world narrows to his fingers working their magic inside me, his lips caressing and toying with my nipples, and the weight of him pinning me down into the comfort of the bed.

I’m teetering on the edge, my body coiling tighter.

“Let go,” he says. “Come for me, Sofia.”

“I can’t—what if they hear?—”

His thumb circles my clit with devastating pressure, his rhythm unfaltering as he curves his fingers inside me, finding my downfall.

Release crashes through me, wiping out every coherent thought. He fuses his lips to mine, and every gasp, every whimper gets stolen by his tongue.

My body jerks with oversensitivity, but he doesn’t stop, pushing me straight through the peak into something deeper, darker.

“Too much—” I manage to gasp.

“No such thing.” His teeth catch my lower lip, biting just hard enough to trigger every nerve cluster along my spine. “I decide when it’s enough.”

His words shouldn’t turn me on. They shouldn’t make me wetter, shouldn’t make my hips rock against his hand with renewed urgency. But they do.

“You like that?” His voice drops to a growl. “Being told what to do? Being at my mercy?”

I can’t form words, can only nod as the second orgasm hits me without warning, more intense than the first. My nails rake down his back, leaving trails I know will mark him. His mouth covers mine again, but this time, it’s not to silence me—it’s to claim me, to consume me.

Until there’s no air left.

Until there’s only him.

Slowly, he eases away, and my body goes slack, sinking deeper into the mattress.

His fingers slide out of me, and he brings them to his mouth, sucking them clean while holding my gaze. “Sweet. Even now, at the end of the world. You’ll always be worth it.”

“You’re…”

“What’s your name?”

I blink at him, my brain scrambling.

“Your name.” His eyes crinkle at the corners. “Do you remember it?”

“Fuck off.” I shove his shoulder.

“That’s what I thought.” He rolls onto his side, propping himself on one elbow, his other hand tracing lazy circles on my stomach. “Mission accomplished.”

Yes…

My limbs are heavy as lead, and my mind finally, blissfully blank. I turn my head to the side, my eyes drifting down to the bulge in his pants. “Let me…” I reach out.

He catches my wrist gently. “Not tonight.”

“Why not? Don’t you want?—”

“I do.” His voice is tight with restraint. “But tonight was for you.”

First time a man refused. “Are you… Is something wrong?”

He’s silent, his fingers resuming their path on my skin. “Is this just convenient for you?”

The question throws me completely. “What?”

“This. Us.” His hand gestures between our bodies. “Is it just because I’m here? Because the world’s ending, and I’m the next warm body?”

“You think I’m just using you?” I tug down the shirt, settling onto my side. “If all I wanted was that, I could have latched onto Alex again. Or Marcus… or even John.”

Gavin snatches my thigh, yanking me across the mattress until I collide with his solid chest, settling my leg around his waist. “You’re not fucking touching either of them.” His voice rumbles against my ear, deep and possessive.

“Jealous? ”

“Territorial.” His fingers curl around my hip, branding me through the thin fabric of my borrowed t-shirt.

I laugh. “Gavin…”

“I’ve seen how Alex looks at you.”

“That doesn’t mean I want him.”

“You already had him.”

“That was only for convenience. And I do regret it.”

His eyes narrow, searching my face for lies. “Then what is this?”

“I don’t know. But it’s not casual or just convenient. At least not for me.”

“I can hear when you’re lying.”

“Then you know I’m telling the truth.”

His hand slides up to cup my face, thumb tracing my lower lip. “For me, neither.”

I lean in, capturing his lips with mine in a slow, deep kiss. His surprise melts into response, his hand settling at the back of my neck. When I pull away, his eyes remain closed for a beat longer than necessary.

I whisper against his mouth, “Are we good?”

“I’m sorry for—” His eyes flutter open.

I press my finger against his lips. “Don’t. But I want us to talk about stuff like this. Not just…”

“Talking isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.” I nestle into the crook of his neck, his arm automatically wrapping around me. “We should sleep.”

“Hmm.” His fingers trace lazy patterns on my skin, raising goosebumps despite the warmth of his body.

“You’re more,” I say. “More than convenience. More than I deserve.”

His body relaxes incrementally. “Go to sleep.”

“Will you still be here in the morning?”

There’s a pause, then, “Get some rest. ”

Not an answer. One step after another. We have all the time now.

I’ve had my share of hookups. Clinical, transactional exchanges of pleasure that left me feeling emptier afterward.

Like with Alex. God, Alex. That mistake taught me what sex without connection really feels like: hollow satisfaction followed by awkward morning-afters and carefully maintained professional distance.

But this?

This feeling… It’s different.

Gavin’s fingers twitch against my skin, squeezing me to his body, and I wrap my arms around his neck.

It’s not just the physical—though fuck, that was incredible. It’s the way his eyes track me across a room. The way he positions himself between me and potential threats without even thinking about it. The way his voice softens when we’re alone, revealing glimpses of the man beneath the scars.

I trace one across his collarbone.

His skin is a roadmap of suffering I can’t begin to comprehend. Yet beneath all that pain, there’s a resilience that leaves me in awe. The way he refuses to let Green’s torture define him. The way he still finds moments to smile, rare and precious, despite everything he’s endured.

What draws me to him isn’t just safety or protection—it’s witnessing someone who’s seen the darkest humanity has to offer and still chooses compassion. Still risks himself for others. Still lets himself feel something for me despite knowing attachment is dangerous in this world.

Maybe that’s what terrifies me most—not that I’m falling for him, but that I might actually deserve the way he looks at me. That despite my role in creating this nightmare, he sees something in me worth saving. Worth… loving?

Is this what it feels like ?

His breath hitches slightly at my touch, then evens out again. I kiss his chest.

Maybe it’s fucked up to be thinking about love while the world burns around us. Maybe it’s selfish to find happiness in the middle of so much death. But if not now, when? If the virus taught me anything, it’s that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

Never was.

My mother used to say good things grow in unlikely places. Like her prized tomatoes that flourished in our tiny backyard despite the poor soil. Like her marriage to my father that survived poverty and hardship.

Like whatever this is between Gavin and me, sprouting from the ashes of civilization.

It’s definitely chemistry.

I don’t know if it’s love yet. Can’t be. We only know each other… a day? Depending on whether you count the fourteen months in—longer.

But it could be. Maybe.

The world might be ending, but that doesn’t mean we have to.