Chapter 18 The Vetting #2
Aria clutches her blankets, her chest rising and falling softly to the rhythm of her breathing. Her lush lips part, and she scrunches her cute button nose. A crease forms on her forehead, and a lock of hair falls over her eyes.
Biting back a smile, I reach out and gently sweep it back.
“Aria,” I whisper, not wanting to scare her.
She mumbles something and turns over, taking the blankets with her.
Giving me a dangerous view of her round backside.
Fuck.
Ignoring the blood rushing south, I glide my fingers down her hair, over her neck, down the curve of her shoulders to her arm.
“Aria.”
A sharp exhale. She freezes, her muscles tensing.
“It’s me,” I say, removing my hand.
“R-Reaper?”
“Yes.”
A few seconds pass, silent except for the ticking of the clock in the living room, and slowly her muscles loosen.
She turns around, her eyes open but unseeing. “W-Why are you here? Didn’t you get my message?”
“You didn’t respond to me.”
Aria swallows and begins to rise. I touch her shoulder. “Rest. I just want to talk.”
She tucks her hand under her pillow. “There’s nothing to say. I never should’ve let it get this far.”
“What far? We haven’t done anything.”
A snort tumbles out of her. “I told you how I wanted my patients to be tortured and killed. I told you how I fake smiles for my friends every day. I told you I like to do dangerous, stupid things like dancing at the edge of rooftops or having trysts with strangers—”
She shuts up then, her breathing quickening.
“You needed someone to listen. I want to listen. And this between us…it isn’t normal. But I don’t think you want normal.”
Her tongue peeks out and flicks her lips. I imagine it on my skin. Imagine hearing her whisper her sins into my ear.
“What’s in the dark stays in the dark.” Hot need tightens low and cruel as I reach out and graze the back of my hand over her cheek, watching her eyes flutter shut. “No one else needs to understand except us.”
“Reaper,” she whispers, turning toward my voice.
My fingers twitch, every nerve ending inside me glowing like fireflies in a jar. I trail a path down to those plush lips, dipping my thumb in, just slightly, and groaning when her hot little mouth sucks me in.
Just like she would to my cock.
A tentative lick, a soft moan.
“Fuuuck,” I grunt and yank my thumb out, my voice gritty.
“Reaper, I feel—”
“I know.” Leaning in, I press a featherlight kiss to her ear, and she shivers. “Let me stay.”
Silence falls between us. I inhale her intoxicating scent of honey and cotton. And there’s the layer of gardenias, sweet and hidden, like her dark side. God, I want to taste it, kiss it, mainline her scent into my veins and forget everything.
“Fine.”
A jolt stabs through me at that one word, and I smile, forcing myself to lean back, to give her space, to not spook her. The next words tumble out with no forethought.
“Want to come out and play?”
Her lips quiver. “That’s a horrible line. Something a serial killer would say.”
“What if I am?”
“What?”
“A serial killer.” I press the next words into her ear. “You just let me stay.”
“If you were a serial killer, I’d be dead anyway. Might as well have fun while I’m at it.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. Then she chews her lip. “Actually, aren’t you technically a serial killer? All those victims in the ER?”
“They aren’t dead when I send them in.” I grin. “Not my fault you can’t save them.”
“Semantics, but I’ll take it. You should be a lawyer instead. Worse than a serial killer,” she retorts, then scowls. “God, my priorities are messed up.”
A laugh catches me off guard—rough and unfamiliar. I bite it back, but not before she hears it.
“There,” she says, “proof of not serial killer status. Congratulations.”
“What if I’m a serial killer with a sense of humor?”
“Still doesn’t change my outcome, does it?” Aria lifts her brow, a smug smile curving her lips. “I’m still dead and I’m going to have my fun beforehand.”
Another laugh rumbles from my throat, and the pressure inside me builds until I’m besieged with the urge to pull her into my arms and show her the fun she’s asking for.
“We’re nuts,” she murmurs, her fingers clutching her ring again.
The sight floors me. Blake’s ring.
Guilt eats at me. I’m wrong for her for too many reasons. This being the top one. I’m a bastard for doing this—leading her on.
But like a selfish bastard, I give in and pull her fingers away from the damn rock before I can think better of it.
Mine. In the dark. Only mine.
“Normal’s overrated,” I rasp.
“I spend my days at work analyzing what’s ‘normal,’” she whispers. “Normal labs. Normal results. Normal, normal, normal. And here you are, the worst thing for me, telling me normal doesn’t matter.”
“Why am I the worst thing for you?” My fingers trail over the back of her hand, then her wrist, where I lightly rest, relishing the flutters beneath the surface.
“I’m supposed to want stability. That’s what I got with Blake. That’s what Mom didn’t give me.”
“And I’m not stable.”
“You’re faceless. Nameless. You’re the opposite of stability.”
And yet you know me…better than anyone. But I don’t tell her that.
“This is a bad idea,” Aria whispers, but now she’s playing with my hand, her agile fingers roving over the lines carved onto my palm, each scrape a direct tug to my cock.
“The worst,” I whisper.
Fuck.
She freezes, her gaze snapping to my face, and I hold still. I’m losing my grip. Making mistakes. Uttering the same words I told her earlier today at the ER.
“But you’re going to let me,” I add.
“Do what?”
“Ruin our lives. Maybe.”
To my surprise, she smiles.
Small. Crooked. Dimple showing.
And real.
And fuck, that does me in far more than her lips around my thumb.