Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
“Stay.” The word is such a simple one, and I don’t expect the softness that comes out of Larkin’s mouth. He drags me down onto the sofa in front of him and carefully runs his comb through my wet black hair. “Have you ever thought about growing your hair out?”
All the soft, mushy feelings that came from his invitation to stay here instead of going back to the city right away evaporate.
I try to get up, only for Larkin to wrap an arm around my shoulders to pull me back against him.
“Whoa, whoa. What’s wrong, silly girl?” he kisses my cheek, not particularly perturbed by my sudden escape attempt. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Yeah.” A small, rueful smirk crosses my lips.
“I can’t let my hair grow. Well, nothing terrible will befall me.
I’m not under a curse.” It occurs to me again how talkative I find myself around Larkin, and I feel myself sink back into his embrace almost unconsciously.
“My mother wouldn’t let me cut it. She wanted it long, and said…
” I trail off, shaking my head. “Well, anyway. I don’t like it going past my shoulders. ”
Larkin hums and reaches out to comb his fingers through it, fluffing my hair to help it dry faster. I let him, eyes sliding closed, and the resistance in my body fades while I let him touch me with affection, rather than worrying about what he’ll do while my guard is down.
“Do you still blame me?” I ask after a few peaceful minutes of silence and his fingers in my hair. “For Derek?”
When he doesn’t answer right away, I try to turn, only for Larkin to hold on to my face to keep me looking away from him and out the window, instead of at his expression.
“I suppose I’m not as mad about it anymore,” he says finally, causing me to roll my eyes in an automatic response.
“How could I be mad, hmm?” He leans in to nip at my ear and grind his hips against my towel-clad ass.
“When your body is oh-so-welcoming to me anytime I want you?”
Growling, I nip at his fingers, and Larkin chuckles in amusement.
I feel him lean forward, and a second later, his teeth sink into the meat of my shoulder, causing me to cry out.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he warns, before licking over the spot that aches from his teeth.
The hot, sharp pain has me writhing in his lap, and my towel rides up enough that the one wrapped around his waist is the only thing separating our bodies.
But Larkin must have a stronger constitution than me, because even though I can feel his arousal under the navy cotton, he doesn’t push it aside to fuck me.
I won’t beg, but silently, I wish he would.
Instead, my stalker pulls me back against his chest and wraps both arms around me with my towel pooling at my thighs as he cups my breasts in his hands.
“Tell me a story,” he urges in my ear, teasing my overheated and too-sensitive skin. “Tell me something that Esme doesn’t know. That no one else knows. Tell me why you did it.”
I know what he means, even without him clarifying what it he means.
My hands come up to stroke along his arms, and I lean my head back to stare at the ceiling pensively before I answer.
“Because she was cruel,” I murmur at last, giving him the answer I’ve told before.
But now it feels hollow on my lips, even though it is the truth.
“Because she hurt me. She wouldn’t let me sleep in the house, and—”
“No.” He flicks my nose punishingly with a small chuckle. “I’m not asking about that. I want to know why. What did it for you? What was the thing to push you over the edge? What combination of things made you take a flashlight and beat your mother’s skull to smithereens?”
His frank, brutal way of describing it makes a shiver go down my spine, and my fingers feel numb as I grip his arm a little more tightly, like an anchor to hold me in place.
I don’t have to tell him, I reason. I could honestly make something up or evade the question. Even Cass doesn’t know everything, and I consider him my best friend.
“She threw me in a well.” The words come out a bit strangled and soft.
My fingers tighten on his arm, and I’m unable to sit completely still.
“It wasn’t just that. It was the other things too, you know?
She used to love me. Mom and I did everything together.
She taught me how to ride a horse. She took me with her everywhere.
But then suddenly?” I shrug, the action jerky.
“I don’t know what happened. Suddenly, I wasn’t her daughter anymore.
She would grab me and shake me. She’d demand to know where Sierra went, and why I’d taken her.
” From the corner of my eye, I can see my hands shaking, clutching his arm like a vice.
“Over and over and over. Every day, until she got tired of looking at me and made Dad build me a room in the barn loft. I loved the horses until then, but they kept me up at night and it was so cold in the barn. And—” My words falter, and I close my eyes to push back the hot tears I can feel pushing to the surface.
“Did I mention she threw me in a well?”
“Maybe once.” Larkin’s mouth brushes my jaw, and I jump, surprised. “Poor, silly girl. My poor Sierra.” Something goes through me, something both exciting and terrifying, when he whispers my real name in my ear.
“I never went anywhere!” My words are harsher than I intend them to be, betraying years of pent-up confusion and anger.
“I was always there, Larkin! It’s not like I’m some-some alien doppelg?nger or fae changeling.
I’m her! Sierra Tova Morwen. Daughter of Anna and Rick Morwen.
She’s the one who went crazy, but”—I let out a wretched, humorless laugh and glare up at the ceiling—“somehow I’m the one who got dealt the consequences. ”
His silence isn’t what I expect. He holds me around the shoulders, letting me grip his arm, but Larkin doesn’t give me one of his normal, snarky replies. Anxiety churns below my sternum, and I twist to look at him, my neck protesting as I glare at him over my shoulder. “You think I’m lying.”
Larkin is quick to assure me, “No, I don’t think you’re lying at all.
I think you’re the same Sierra who was born to Anna and Rick Morwen.
I think you grew up with a mother who stopped loving you and a father who didn’t protect you.
” He suddenly pulls me to the side, forcing me onto my back on the couch so he can hover over me.
“But do you want to know what else I think?” His words send a shiver down my spine, and I’m tempted to tell him no.
Larkin holds himself over me, his towel slipping dangerously low while mine has completely given up and slithered to the floor.
Before tonight, I’ve never felt this vulnerable, or this raw.
I don’t understand some of my reactions to him, or to Dale’s death.
I’m never very good with change, no matter how I like to tease about being adaptable in bad situations. Larkin represents change and newness and—
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Yes. I want to know what you think.”
“I think you’re a monster.”
The words make me go cold, and I swear my heart stops beating. I freeze under him, my eyes wide and on his, expecting him to break out into a laugh or smirk down at me before saying something to break the heavy mood.
“I think you’re fucked up, silly girl.” The fondness doesn’t quite soften his words, and I’m too frozen to do anything as he reaches up to cup my face, thumb trailing over my lower lip.
“You’ve killed four people now, and you cried over Dale not because he’s dead, but because he made it self-defense when you wanted it to be in cold blood. ”
“No, that’s not—”
“You killed your roommate’s boyfriend and instead of falling apart, you immediately calculated a way to make it look like one of mine.” His nail digs into the softness of my lip, drawing a soft breath from my mouth.
“You killed your mother by beating her face in with a flashlight with such brutality no one could believe a child could do that. You got away with it because of that fact. Because the murder was so cruel, so cold, that the jurors didn’t actually want to believe the little girl in the courtroom could have done that, and it was easier to believe in justifiable cause than to look at you and see you for what you are.
” He lowers his face so his lips just over mine and we’re breathing the same air.
“You found your father dead and went to some guy staying in a cabin on the island. You could’ve run away from him.
Derek Prescott wasn’t exactly that athletic.
You could’ve gone anywhere, done anything.
You could’ve just killed him quickly. But no, little girl,” Larkin croons with a sweetness in his words that makes me feel sick.
“You poked out his eyes and listened to him scream. Then you beat him with that same flashlight, even though he was never going to be able to find or hurt you. Hell, he would’ve died anyway from what you did to his eyes.
But that wasn’t enough for you. So do I think you’re a changeling or a doppelg?nger?
Do I think you just magically appeared to take over the body of Sierra Tova Morwen? Absolutely not.”
He sinks down impossibly closer, until his lips brush mine, and my heart pounds against my chest to escape the prison of my ribs in a rapid, rabbit-like frenzy.
I don’t want to hear this.
I don’t want to know what he thinks—
“I think you were always a little monster. I think it was always inside you, growing like the sweetest rot.” He tucks my hair back from my face.
“And I think your mother made you bloom into what you were always meant to be, Sierra.” He purrs my real name, and I swear I can’t breathe.
I can’t take a breath, or move, or scream, or—