Page 107 of Ash and Poison

“Your sisters, are they like you?”

I smiled. “What do you think?”

“They are like you, and you love them.”

“Yes, and I’m alive now, because of them. I survived the horror only because Layne and Trina were there.”

His eyes turned pensive as he ran a finger along my brows.

His finger went to my nose before he pressed his thumb against my lips.

“Maybe someday, you’ll learn to…” He closed his eyes as if he was considering whether to say what he wanted to say. He didn’t. His fingers slid down my shoulder, over the tattoo of a twisting snake, before he pressed a kiss on my neck. “It’s okay, you know, to let others worry about you, too. It won’t kill you.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“You love danger, don’t you?” he asked.

“Only when I know I can win. I don’t like to gamble.”

“Life’s a gamble, and…” His eyes never left mine, as he leaned in, pressing his lips against mine. “I’m all in now, Sharma.”

I gulped, my heart hammering, when he pulled away. He didn’t kiss harder, he didn’t touch me, he didn’t try to make it sexual. Fuck. I wanted him to, but he turned back to the laptop as if he hadn’t just almost… confessed.

He did, didn’t he?

Shaking my head, I grabbed my pen and started listing the names, one after another. The details on why these girls had ended their lives were frustratingly sparse.

“I’ll start reaching out to their families. See if anyone’s willing to talk about what happened, or if they remember anything unusual.”

We worked for another twenty minutes.

He yawned, stretching against the couch, and closed his eyes.

I took his hand in mine, grazing my fingers along the veins in his arm until he relaxed under my touch. He groaned when I pressed a kiss against his palm.

“You can choose how you want to pay me tonight,” he whispered, eyes closed.

I stared at him, the hunger steadily taking over. My need for him was just as inescapable as the need for murder had once been.

He blinked, staring at me, waiting.

This man made me reckless. Logic told me to walk away, to keep my heart distant, to not let him become anything more than a passing moment in a life already too complicated. But logic was dead the second he looked at me like that—like he saw something in me, something worth protecting, worth keeping.

This was self-destruction.

And I wanted it.

“I want blood,” I whispered, and his eyes widened, his breath coming in a shallow gasp. “I want to control you this time, and I want to…”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t even let me say what I wanted.”

He removed his shirt, throwing it down.

“Yes, to whatever you want, Diya, yes to every fucking thing. Use me, break me, brand me.”

“Should I?” I said with a smile, standing up from the couch. On my way toward the bed, I grabbed a knife from the drawer. It was new, and I had been waiting for the right moment to use it.