Page 60 of Devil

I give her another wide, real smile, and she blushes anew. “No, Birdie. It doesn’t bother me. The things I want to do to you are so corrupting and unhealthy that it’s in your best interest to remain disturbed. It’ll make it easier for you to leave if you need to.”

Although I sincerely hope she doesn’t. I sincerely hope she lets me disturb her for a very, very long time because I have some theories about Birdie Cooper and what her lonely little heart needs.

And also because I want to.

“Is there something you do mind telling me then?” I prod, letting go of her ankle to push the tray closer to her. “Because I still want to hear it.”

“It’s nothing. Nothing important.” She seems grateful for the excuse of the tray, taking a long time to choose between a strawberry and a raspberry so she doesn’t have to look at me.

“It matters to me. It’s important to me.”

She eats the raspberry, still not looking at my face.

“Birdie.”

The stern tone accomplishes what my encouraging words cannot—she is Catholic after all—and she finally says, quickly and with the heat of embarrassment: “I was wondering why it took you so long.”

There are a fair number of things she could be referring to here, so I prompt carefully, “Why what took me so long, exactly?”

“To come back.” A fast, fortifying breath. “I was wondering why you left after the hospital, why you stayed away. That’s a whole week and a half out of the year you wanted, and I can’t…I can’t make sense of it. The only thing I can think of is that you don’t want this as much as you thought you might now that it’s real. That you were—are—reconsidering this. Me.”

The embarrassment is all over her now, in her pink cheeks and twisting hands and darting eyes. Poor Birdie, so ready to be embarrassed over nothing, so ready to be ridiculed or judged for something as utterly understandable as asking a question about sex from the man who’s essentially imprisoned her with it.

I take a minute. It matters to me that she doesn’t think I was indifferent to fucking her, but also I’m not proud of the reason I needed to stay away. I suppose I’m a little embarrassed of it myself.

And that’s why I end up telling her. She’s being so brave with her embarrassment; I can be brave with mine.

Also, I just hate the idea of her thinking I don’t want her. However fucked up my wanting is, it’s very much alive.

“The day after the hospital, when I had you up against the wall—do you remember? You asked if I was going to hurt you.”

“I shouldn’t have,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean it like I wanted you to stop. I just wanted to know.”

I lean forward enough that she looks up reflexively, and I meet her eyes when she does. “The thing is that Iwouldhave hurt you and not even in the way I want to hurt you. I was about to tear you apart while you had stitches in your leg, while you were taking antibiotics for the same thing that nearly killed me as a teenager. But I was so impatient, so…insensate to anything that wasn’t finally having you, and if I hadn’t left that very instant, I would have had you flat on your stomach with my hand on your back while I undid my belt. I would have done it knowing full well that you were almost admitted to the hospital the day before.”

I let out a long breath, not of real remorse but something like it, I think. I do wish I were a better person for her sake. I’ve wished it for a long time now.

“I like transgression, Birdie, but I want to pollute your dear little heart, not risk ripping your stitches open. Not tax your immune system and make you susceptible to blood poisoning.”

She keeps her gaze fixed to mine as her hand comes up and chafes slowly at her chest.

“So if you have any concerns about my continuing interest in the deal, let me put them to rest. I stayed away because if I didn’t, I was going to break one of the very few rules—and I meanveryfew rules, Birdie, so unbelievably few—that I’m trying to follow when it comes to you. I stayed away because I want this so much more than I ever could have predicted, because I didn’t trust my restraint, because I would have put your health at risk while you were healing. Because I don’t think I’m capable of not touching you when you’re this close and this available. So don’t worry that I don’t still want this, and if my answer doesn’t reassure you, then let today reassure you: I didn’t fuck you three times in a row because I’mreconsidering.”

She drops her hand, and the skin above her left breast is now all pink and warm looking. I want to lean forward and lick it, but I heroically hold myself back.

“I want to know what’s going through that brilliant head of yours. I want to live inside it, but I can’t, so you have to share it with me. You can’t be a miser when it comes to something I want so badly. It wouldn’t be Christian of you.”

A subtle bunching of her cheeks again. I take this as a positive sign that she doesn’t want to run naked and screaming into the street after my confession.

“I’m not brilliant,” she says softly, which is one of the few truly stupid things I’ve ever heard her say. “If you knew how scattered and ordinary my thoughts were, you wouldn’t want them.”

“How can they be ordinary?” I ask genuinely. “They belong to you.”

She shakes her head, but the corners of her mouth are turned up. “Ry.”

“I suppose you’ll have to trust me when I say that I’m hungry for every bit of you, even the things you think are boring or common. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She looks down at the glass still cradled in one hand, but it seems more about gathering her thoughts than avoiding my eyes this time. “I guess…I’m grateful that you care about my health, and I’m scared of what you might be capable of, and I’m ashamed that my fear is alloyed with so many other things.”