Page 75 of The Way We Rot
She winced. “Trying.” She lifted the photos, some of me and Jake. “I’m trying, and I’m fucking failing. Because Adrian, I don’t care. I killed this little boy. I ended his life before his dreams could come true in his adulthood. And I don’t care. I’d do it again.”
Tears flooded her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
Comfort. That’s what she needed. But all I wanted to do was bring her pain for her words. She deserved no comfort.
In the two weeks we’d healed side by side, I’d given her none. Just my silence, my cooperation, but not my comfort.
“All I can think about is how I didn’t even remember his name,” she continued, her voice still strained. “I killed him, slit his throat, Adrian, and I wasn’t even sure what he was called. I’m sick.”
Heart aching, I fell to my knees beside her. “You are sick,” I told her. “And I will end that sickness soon. That is a vow, little killer.”
“So why not now?” She looked up at me. “I made a promise in my head. That my death would be yours to claim. But you haven’t taken it. For weeks, I’ve laid at your side, slept there, expecting every night not to wake up.”
“Because it’s not good enough, nothing I can come up with is good enough.”
She sighed, moved her hand to my cheek and stroked the stubble growing there. Something near affection flashed in her vision, and we did have that. We had a connection, deep and untenable, harsh and unwanted. I fought it, she did too, but since the second I’d laid eyes on her in that prison, we’d been on this course. Connected in our disgrace.
Through all the shit we’d committed, all the horrors I’d put on her body and she’d put on my mind, something bone deep and unshakeable had festered like a bacteria and glued us together.
I leaned into her touch, turned and kissed her palm. “I’ll be ready soon,” I muttered.
“You swear you promise?” Her voice was soft, naked for me, and the urge to take her washed over me.
I dropped my gaze to her body, her heaving chest and her quivering lip.
“Adrian…” she said my name again, in that begging, soft way she sometimes did. And I found I’d missed it, missed the sound of her voice as she begged, in pleasure or in pain. I needed to hear it again. Yes, this was the day things would change, the day we would come out of limbo.
That promise I made, for the first time I questioned if I could keep it. The further she burrowed under my skin, the harder it was to commit to ending her. I wanted to. But I also craved her. So when would that balance strike? When would the moment hit? It wasn’t now. I didn’t want her death yet; I desired more of her pain first.
I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, soft, no tongue, just a meeting of mouths to let her know I was here.
She sighed, her hands coming up around my neck to pull me closer to her. We shifted, her falling onto her back, me crowding over her.
Our touches roamed, and I let her feel me, wherever and however she wanted. This wouldn’t be soft, but for a moment it could be.
The little sighs and squeaks that fell from her throat were intoxicating, delicious. I kissed her harder, snaking my tongue against hers, pushing for more as her legs wrapped around my body.
“God, you’re maddening,” I muttered into her mouth between presses of our lips. My cock thickened in my sweats, the imprint pressing into her core.
She was almost healed there now, still tender, with scabs and scars, but that didn’t matter. The pain and pleasure always mixed so beautifully with her. Her pussy was my sick painting, my promise.
“I want you,” she breathed. “However you’ll take me.”
I kissed her again. “I can’t—” I started. “Can’t do it normally.”
“What is normal anyway?” she asked, tilting her head, holding both her hands on my jaw, demanding I look at her, study her. “Do whatever you need to do.”
“It’s not as fun if you want it, little killer.”
She laughed, wicked and booming, then squirmed out from underneath me, standing on unsteady legs. “I’ll run, then. Make me not want it first. Scare me, Darling, sir, whatever the hell you want to me called.” She paused, staring deep into my damned soul. “Try and scare me.”
On my knees, I grabbed her hips, held her steady to me, and looked up at her. “You’re going to run?”
“I’m going to get away from you,” she said, nodding, her eyes shuttering as we stayed there, me prone on my knees, her risen above, staring down. “I don’t want this.”
And she did. She turned and fled, her bare feet slapping the floor as she disappeared out of the apartment and into the theater. My cock throbbed. Were we pretending here? Had I reached this point where I could play with her?
It was wrong. I was wrong for this. Fuck.
