Page 122 of The Wicked

I had always prided myself on my ability to wield control. To pull back when I knew I was breaching a line I shouldn’t and couldn’t cross. But tonight, my sense of reasoning had drifted into the open sky.

The moment my mind decided it was okay to pull down my walls and let that pestilent woman see a side of me I reserved for people who knew little of my world, I knew I was compromised.

Sex was sacred to me because I knew how many men in my field had fallen due to the body of a woman: her smiles and curves, the soft voice that would make a man wonder what exactly she would sound like when he buried himself inside her.

For years, I had deprived myself of the intimacy that came with sexual activities.

For precisely three reasons.

One was distraction. I couldn’t afford it. The fear of missing out on something important while doing something as measly as fucking a woman was very close to home. I couldn’t afford a mistake like that again.

Two: my attachment issues. Becoming attached to a woman who would only want me for what my body had to offer was as useless as the act offuckingitself. I would not delude myself and say that as a new adult, I hadn’t longed for the intimacy that came with being in a relationship or the absolution that grew with the bond of marriage.

Three: respect. Seeing how my father had handled the issue with Elia’s mother and how he had disrespected my mothercountless times afterward, flaunting the women he practiced infidelity with, I’d vowed never to be like him. To respect women. It was why I was never with the same woman twice, why I could finger-count the very few women I had been with in my whole existence.

Grace, the woman from the art exhibit, being the fourth and second to last. I’d only been with her once, and I made sure it never happened again because I knew if it did, I’d most definitely enter into a relationship with her because I wasn’t about to fuck a woman more than once for the sake of pleasure. It would have to mean something.

I didn’t just act out of pure lust. My actions were continuously measured and calculated before even carrying them out.

This was precisely why my mind was spiraling.

I was aware that it wasn’t the drug.

On several occasions, I had admitted to being attracted to Zahra because I conceded that it was normal. I was a full-blooded man, always finding myself in the presence of an aggravating, attractive woman who was sharp-mouthed and provoked useless emotions in me.

Seeing her walk to that railing, wearing that sorry excuse for a nightgown, which exposed tormenting legs and thighs that delivered sinful images to my mind’s eye, I knew I had to be on guard.

But the minute she sat beside me, opening that mouth to talk to me and ask me questions no one had ever bothered to ask, I just couldn’t shut up. I couldn’t stop myself from bringing out the Elio Marino who lived outside his head, and far away from the chaos his last name compelled.

Her presence was hot and cold. Sometimes she drove me to the brink of wanting to actually go through with killing her… and sometimes, like tonight, she pushed me out of my head into a comforting place where I had no reason to hide or pretend I was a well-packaged psychopath.

It scared me.

She scared me.

I should be thanking Angelo for interrupting and stopping me from doing something I wouldn’t be able to take back, but I surprised myself by picturing his body mysteriously falling over the railing, with me standing behind it, watching him plummet to his death, for choosing this time to check on me.

And the way she had rushed out, separating herself from me like it would end the world if anyone found out we’d been that close, had me feeling… strange.

I was annoyed, yes.

But I was confused even more than I was annoyed.

I liked kissing her.

I had done it because I momentarily forgot the meaning of control, credit to her heat against the strain of my crotch and those pierced hard nipples pressing against my chest. But more than anything, there was an aching I needed to please, one that tugged deep in my stomach, one I had never felt before.

Her lips called to mine, and I wanted a taste, even though I knew it was a cretinous thing to do.

But she had run from me… why?

Did she hate it?

Did the intoxication of the drug fade from her eyes and show her who exactly had kissed her? Was she appalled by it? By me? Was she worried about what Elia would think? Goodness gracious—what would he think?

He would kill me, of that I was certain. She was his, and I had just ruined that.

But it was terrific for me; I won’t lie.