8. Eva
Eva
I stand in the doorway of the suite where Robin’s family is assembled and I feel like a shadow watching light with envy.
Her siblings crash into her with the force of a small hurricane—Adrian’s careful hands checking her over, Maisie’s tears soaking into Robin’s sweats, Alicia hanging back but close enough to touch.
The fog of fear still clings to the air, but it’s being pushed out by something warmer.
Something I don’t belong to, but wish I did.
Robin’s smile is radiant despite what those animals, the Gattos, did to her. “I’m okay,” she keeps saying, her voice hoarse but steady. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
I press my back against the doorframe, not wanting to intrude, but too heartsick to give them the privacy they deserve. Robin glances over Dane’s shoulder and catches my eye, smiles at me. A real smile, not the careful ones she used to give me in the castle when she was still afraid.
“Eva helped save me,” she tells them, and I want to correct her. I didn’t save her. I put her in danger in the first place.
Adrian looks at me with something that might be grudging respect. “Thank you,” he says simply, and the weight of it nearly breaks me.
I nod because words feel impossible. What do you say to a family whose sister you bought, broke, discarded, and then almost got killed? Sorry doesn’t begin to cover it.
“How are you feeling?” Alicia asks Robin.
“Like I got hit by a truck,” Robin admits with a small laugh that doesn’t quite hide the pain. “But I’m here. That’s what matters.”
That’s when Maisie breaks away from the group hug and does something that stops my world entirely.
She runs across the room and throws herself at me, clutching me tight.
I freeze. My hands hover in the air, uncertain. Children don’t touch me. Children run from me, cross streets to avoid me, hide behind their mothers when they see me coming. But Maisie’s small arms wrap around my waist with complete trust, her face buried against my ribs.
“Thank you!” Her voice is muffled but determined. “Thank you for bringing Robin back, and for everything else you’ve done for us.”
“Maisie—” I start, but she pulls back, grabs my hand, and pulls me toward the family huddle. Adrian shifts to make room, his expression carefully neutral but not hostile. Alicia follows his lead, pulling Maisie into the middle and putting an arm around me.
And suddenly I’m surrounded by warmth and the clean scent of that shampoo they all seem to use and the indefinable feel of family .
Robin’s hand finds mine amid the tangle of limbs and squeezes. Over the heads of her siblings, she mouths thank you and I have to look away because the gratitude in her eyes is more than I deserve.
This is what she sacrificed herself for. Not money or survival, but this—the fierce love of people who would walk through fire for each other. The kind of love that makes you sell yourself to strangers and know that it’s a precious gift.
The embrace breaks apart naturally, and then the questions start: Robin is peppered with them, bombarded even, and every answer she gives downplays everything she’s been through. I feel guiltier and guiltier until I want to run away and hide my face in shame.
This was all my fault.
“Alright, everyone calm down. Robin needs to get some rest,” Adrian says eventually, the protective brother reasserting himself. “She’s been through hell.”
“We all have,” Robin agrees, but she’s looking at me when she says it.
“Yes, I should let you sleep,” I say, standing quickly. “You need to recover.”
“Actually,” Robin says, “I think I’ll sleep better in the other suite. It’s quieter there, and you guys need some time to decompress, too.”
Adrian nods. “We’ll be okay here. You get some rest.”
“I’ll check on you in a few hours,” Robin promises, kissing each of them goodbye with the fierce tenderness of someone who knows how easily it can all be lost.
The walk back to the suite next door feels longer than it should. Robin’s steps are careful but steady, and I resist the urge to hover. She’s stronger than I gave her credit for. Stronger than she gave herself credit for.
The suite still smells faintly of soap and steam from our earlier shower, when I tried to wash away the warehouse and the blood and the terrifying minutes when I thought I’d lost her forever.
“Will you stay with me?” Robin asks, and there’s something tentative in her voice that makes me look at her more carefully.
She’s exhausted, that much is obvious. But there’s something else in her expression—a restless energy that I recognize. The aftermath of adrenaline, when your body doesn’t quite believe the danger is over.
“You need sleep,” I say, though everything in me wants to say yes.
“I couldn’t possibly sleep right now.” She moves closer. “I’m too keyed up. Too...” She searches for the word. “Present.”
I know what she means. When death brushes close enough that you can feel its breath on your neck, every sensation becomes amplified. Colors brighter, sounds sharper, touch electric.
“Robin,” I start, but she’s close enough now that I can see the gold flecks in her blue eyes, the way her pulse jumps in the hollow of her throat.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she asks, and the question is so direct, so unlike the careful Robin from the castle, that I’m momentarily speechless.
“More than I want to breathe,” I admit.
Her smile is brilliant. “Then why aren’t you?”
Because every time I close my eyes, I see her bound and bleeding, and it’s my fault, my fault, my fault.
But Robin’s hand is on my cheek now, thumb tracing the line of my jaw, and when she kisses me, it’s soft and sure.
It tastes like forgiveness I don’t deserve.
And I kiss her back despite myself, despite every logical reason not to.
Her mouth is warm and perfect and alive, and when she sighs against my lips, something tight in my chest finally unwinds.
But then my hands find the bruises on her ribs and she gives a soft hiss of pain. I pull back like I’ve burned her.
“No,” I say, taking a step back. “I won’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I won’t let you connect our pleasure with your torment. What happened to you, what they did—I won’t let that poison this. I don’t want to be another violation.”
Robin stares at me for a long moment, and then her expression shifts from hurt to something fiercer.
“You think I’m broken,” she says, and it’s not a question.
“I think you’re traumatized. I think you need time to?—”
“To what? To convince you that I know my own mind?” She steps closer again, chin tilted up in challenge. “I was taken, Eva. Hurt. Scared. But I wasn’t broken. And if I let them steal this from us—if I let them steal you from me—then they win.”
I shake my head, wordless.
“Do you still want me?” she asks fiercely.
“Of course I do!”
Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer. “Then understand this: our pleasure isn’t tainted by their violence. Our pleasure is how we wash it all away.”
The conviction in her voice, the strength of her—it undoes me completely.
This time when I kiss her, there’s nothing careful about it. It’s hungry and desperate, a clash of lips and teeth and tongues. Robin kisses me back, matching my intensity.
There’s no hesitation in her, no fear, just desire and recklessness. Her mouth opens under mine and her tongue slides against my lips, hungry and greedy and so alive that it makes my hands shake.
I grip her hips, afraid to be too rough, but she presses closer, arching into me until we’re chest to chest, heart to heart. The heat of her skin seeps into mine. I can feel every tremor, every shallow gasp, every wild thud of her pulse as my hand slides down her throat.
“Touch me,” Robin whispers into my mouth, and the plea is raw, almost desperate.
I want to tell her that she doesn’t have to prove anything, that I’ll wait until the stars burn out if that’s what she needs.
But her hands are already tugging at me, pulling me close, and when I hesitate, she bites my lower lip, hard enough to hurt. “Eva. Please. I need you.”
There is nothing in this world I would ever deny her.
Besides, whether a physiological response to the stress and the danger, or just being without her for so long, I’m already wet and aching.
Robin’s hands are on me, yanking my blouse free from my skirt, tugging at the buttons.
Her skin is hot beneath my palms, the silk of her robe sliding against my fingertips as I push it off her shoulders.
My clothes are half-off and her breasts are pressed against me when I back her toward the bedroom, because if I don’t, I’m going to take her here, right up against the wall.
She goes willingly, her hands tugging at my clothes as we stumble through the doorway.
My shirt ends up on the floor, and then my hands are sliding under her sweatshirt, lifting it off.
My breath catches as we pause before the bed. She’s bruised in places she shouldn’t be, a terrible reminder of the night before, but she’s so goddamn beautiful. So brave. I want to wrap her up, protect her, shield her.
But Robin isn’t in the mood for gentleness. “Touch me,” she insists. “ Please .”
Her nipples are already tight, and I lean down, take one between my lips. She moans, her hands tangling in my hair. I flick my tongue against her, the way that always makes her shudder, and she does now.
“Eva,” she pants, and I look up at her. Her pupils are blown wide, her cheeks flushed. “Please?—”
“Tell me what you want, little bird.”
“Fuck me. Fuck me and make me forget.”
“Get on the bed,” I say roughly. “And open your legs.”
Robin sprawls out on the bed, naked and flushed, and the sight makes me clench. Her hands grip the sheets, knuckles white, as she waits for me to act.
“Look at you,” I whisper. “Spread open for me, ready and waiting. Is your cunt dripping wet for me?”
She nods, biting her lip.
“Let’s find out,” I say, kneeling on the edge of the bed and parting her thighs.
“Yes,” Robin groans.