Page 26

I examine the tattoo in the mirror. Saint went out front to draw the blinds down across the wide windows, not wanting to strictly rely on the privacy curtain I pulled. I’m still bare-chested, satiated .

Sex with him, this time, was totally different from the quick-and-dirty fucks of the past. Not that I can complain about them—putting aside the guilt that crawled over us afterward, they were hot.

It was also a baring of my soul. Telling him about Terror…

I’ll admit, I skipped some of the more brash moments.

I went with the feelings of helplessness and vulnerability.

I didn’t want to discuss the clinical aspect.

The way the doctor spread me open to check my hymen when I first arrived, then gave me a tranquilizer to relax.

Docile was the name of their game.

He wouldn’t want to know about the men who bought me. The way their rough fingers gripped at my skin. A million ways to bruise me, but it seems like my soul took most of the battering.

“Tem.”

I glance toward Saint.

“I…” He looks down. “I’m sorry for how I treated you this past year.”

My heart thumps extra-hard. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“I was cruel.” He meets my gaze, his expression pained. “How do I recover from that? I… It wasn’t just what I said when we had sex. It was every other little action. And you were hurting?—”

“No more than you.”

He comes closer. “Men took what they wanted from your body. How is that any different than what I took from you?”

I slide my hands up the front of his chest. “Because I goaded you into it. If I didn’t want you to fuck me, Saint, I would’ve said no. And I believe with all my being that you would respect that.”

He nods, but the haunted expression doesn’t go away.

“I want both,” I whisper. “I want to take your misery and pain and twist it into pleasure. But I like this version of it, too. I like the softness after.”

“A combination,” he agrees.

He pulls me toward the white couch, sitting and drawing me onto his lap. I straddle him and rest my arms on his shoulders. This way, we’re nearly eye to eye. He’s still a bit taller than me, though.

“Is that wickedness you crave a piece of you from Terror?” he asks. “Did they… condition you to like pain?”

I shake my head.

His hands roam slowly, first across my hips and back, then higher. Up my sides, across my ribs. He palms my breasts and skates his thumb across my nipple.

“They pierced one when I arrived,” I tell him. “It hurt so fucking bad.”

“Why?”

“A sign of their ownership, I think. Like tagging a cow’s ear to mark it as part of the herd.”

His brows furrow. “That’s awful.”

“I know.” I scoot back and unbutton his pants. I’m not sure why he put them back on. But his dick is already stiffening again, and I stroke the inked, soft skin to full hardness. “Tell me about this.”

He laughs quietly. “It was a punishment.”

“For what?” I meet his gaze.

I love his eyes. Dark blue, like the ocean in a storm, they can be so impossibly expressive. It’s how I knew he was in pain. And somehow, he can sharpen them to cut like a knife. He can also, I think, see straight through me.

“After Elora died, I wanted to feel something. Anything.”

He keeps touching my breasts, just soft little movements, and I fight the urge to shift my hips. What he’s saying is important, I think.

“You didn’t see me accidentally walk into the bathroom when you were showering,” he continues.

There’s a tub—which I contemplated drowning myself in—and a glass-walled shower.

“The glass was fogged over, but I saw you. Your silhouette. Your ass, your breasts… although if I had seen the piercings, I don’t think I would’ve been able to stop myself.

I was hard in a fucking second, and I hated myself for it.

At her funeral, I promised myself that I’d never fall in love again. ”

I blink hard.

“Do you remember what’s on her plaque at the mausoleum?”

Yes, of course I do. I used to visit it. I haven’t in a few months, though. The urn isn’t there, so she isn’t there. I think her parents took her…

Why Saint allowed that, I’ll never know.

“The darkness only makes you shine brighter,” I recite.

It fit her, both as Elora, a glorious star, and Nyx, the primordial deity. Goddess of the night. She picked that name with care, I know. From her first fight at Olympus, then set on the path by my brother and his friends. With Saint.

They were intertwined, always.

“What made you think of that?” I cup his nape. “And what does that have to do with the tattoo on your dick?”

He leans forward, brushing his lips against mine. I accept the kiss, but I don’t let him deepen it. It’s a rare day for Saint to talk, and I find myself greedy for his words.

“It was you,” he murmurs. “You in the shower. You were singing.”

I scoff. “I don’t sing.”

“You were, though. That song about walking on sunshine. And it hit me— you are that sunshine. You’re warm and alive and sometimes you fucking glow with it, Tem. How could the stars ever compete with the sun?”

Oh God.

Tears spill down my cheeks, but he beats me to wiping them away.

“There’s no darkness that could blow out your flame.”

I wish that were true. But I allow a shaky smile to curve my lips, nonetheless.

“I couldn’t cope with that realization. The fact that I already was attracted to you, that you were around me all the fucking time. The scent of lavender haunts me. It’s your shampoo, isn’t it? I once tried it, just to feel a little less lonely.”

My heart breaks all over again. “Oh, Saint.”

“I might be cruel,” he continues. “I might be a bastard. I might pick fights, or drink too much, but I didn’t want to take something from you in that moment.

I didn’t want to ruin the memory of Elora for you—for either of us.

So I went to Starlight and let myself remember your silhouette in the shower, and the sound of your voice in my ear, get me hard.

And keep me hard through the pain of tattooing myself.

“I knew the next time I thought of you, I could slip that agony in with it, and hopefully, eventually, I’d stop.” He threads his fingers through my hair. “It didn’t work like that, though.”

This confession feels fragile.

I don’t want to move to scare him off, but my heart beats out of control, and my breathing comes in shallow gasps.

All this time, he’s been fighting grief and attraction.

“I…”

“It’s okay.” He strokes himself, his hand twisting at the top and smearing precum down his length. “I blocked out your pain for so long.”

He’s still blocking it out .

I haven’t tried to hide my arms. It didn’t occur to me once his mouth landed on my pussy. I threw caution to the wind, and now it feels precarious. It’s almost too late to go back? I will him to look at my arms, to see that the track marks are not from the hospital.

It’s more.

It’s worse.

When he doesn’t, I rise and let him find my slit. I slide back down slowly, taking him inside me, and groan. He feels good.

Right.

I ride him, while his fingers work at my clit, and I hold his shoulders. I tip my head back, my hair so long it nearly brushes the crack of my ass.

“Are we really doing this?” I ask him.

“Do you mean having sex?” There’s a bit of humor in his tone. “Or allowing ourselves to be happy?”

“That second one.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, wildcat, we’re doing this.”

Okay. I accept it.

He thrusts his hips up, hitting deeper than before, and I groan. He pulls my face toward his, kissing me hard. Tongue and teeth and lips. Heart and soul.

Finally.