Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“Wait, slower, please,” I interrupt. “I can’t hear fast enough.”
“You probably feel stuck with me now. We committed murder,” she whisper-hisses. “I just need you to know that if you want to break up in the future, I’m not going to rat you out. You aren’t trapped with me.”
As soon as her words sink in, I start laughing. Margot looks puzzled, then glares at me. “It isn’t funny.”
“Yes,” I argue, “it is.”
As she sputters, I grab my razor from beside the sink and step back into the shower. Wrapped in a towel, Margot waits. My body’s angled away, but I feel her watching me. I shave quickly, then rinse. Grabbing a towel off the rack, I dab myself dry before spinning to face her.
“What are you…” Her voice trails off. “Get over here.”
Gladly. I walk toward her. Right above my cock, previously concealed by hair, Margot is tattooed in elegant, looping script.
“Th-that’s—” She’s sputtering and stuttering, staring at me.
“Your name.” My cock is a fan of her attention, already filling. I tug it to the side, showing off the flower tattoo down my shaft. “And this is for you. Gladiolus. I know they’re your favorite flower.”
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I continue the tattoo tour. I point at the Roman numerals tucked in the swirls of vines wrapping around my left forearm. “Here’s your birthday.”
“Caine—”
“Not done yet, killer,” I interrupt. Rotating my arm, I point at the Virgo sign on the inside of my bicep.
“That’s your zodiac sign. Come here.” Taking her arm, I gently tug her in front of the sink.
Chest pressed to her back, I meet her gaze in the mirror.
Owlish eyes stare into mine. My erection is doing its damnedest to burrow through the towel to get to her.
Ignoring it, I wrap my hand around her throat.
I feel her swallow against my palm. The necklace is stunning; she is stunning.
Emotion makes my voice thick. “This one may be my favorite.”
Margot stares, eyes shiny.
“When?” she croaks. “Why?”
“The choker two weeks after that first night at the haunt.” I know that this behavior might be considered questionable, but I’m not going to lie to her.
“Your sign and birthday the next year, when I came into town, and you were engaged. Flowers the following year after I saw you again. Your name the next.”
Margot’s face didn’t look this shocked when she found a rattlesnake in her car. “Why?”
“They let me feel like I had a piece of you when I didn’t.
To feel close when I wasn’t.” I wish I had something more eloquent to say, that I could string together words to highlight how this is my version of romance, though it might look a little bit like a red flag.
Just like with the panties, I wonder if my awareness of how peculiar my behavior is makes it better or worse.
Leaning in, I kiss her temple. “What do you think?”
Please don’t say you think you need a restraining order.
A single tear trails down her cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb. Her answer comes out half laugh, half tears. “I don’t know what this says about me as a person, but I love them. I love them so much.”
“Good.” The vise around my heart eases. I grin at her in the mirror.
She smiles back, shaking her head in a sort of disbelief. “Okay, so I don’t need to worry that I trapped you via homicide.”
I laugh. “Baby, I was all in before we buried a body.”
· · ·
Later, after we’ve picked up Gremlin and returned to the haunt to find Nicholas’s car and tow it back here—I’ll be dismantling and scrapping it—we’re finally in bed with the shades drawn.
I’m ready to pass out, but Margot has questions.
“How did you like me enough to tattoo yourself? Was there any point where you thought, ‘Huh, this might be a bit much,’ or no? Have you done this before? Am I going to be giving you a back rub and find someone else’s initials? ”
The rapid-fire questions make me chuckle. I’m spooning her, and she’s spooning Gremlin.
“You are the only one I have tattoos for. I really liked you that first night, when you were nervous about playing Little Red. Even after I left Newbound, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. How scared you were.”
“Gee, thanks.” I can’t see her eyes roll, but I hear it.
“You were scared as shit but had this look. Like you’d either make it or go down swinging.” I smile at the memory. “I’ve never wanted anybody to succeed at anything as badly as I wanted you to push through your fear. And I wanted to help.”
“You’re good at that.”
I’m not sure what she means, and I say so.
“Taking things that feel hopeless and making them doable. Like how you handled all this horribleness with Nicholas.” Margot reaches for my hand under the covers.
“Right when I’m sure I’m drowning, there you are, holding my head above water as casually as you hold the damn door.
You make it look easy when I know it’s not. ”
“It is easy, though. It’s you.” I wonder if she notices that our chests are synchronized right now, inhaling and exhaling as one.
Unlike that first night at the haunt, there’s no way to know whose lungs matched whose.
It doesn’t matter; our bodies are communing on a far more primal wavelength than conscious thought.
“So, you liked me because I was an anxious wreck. Lovely.” Right on cue, Margot’s making a joke. I almost play along. I could tell her that I fell for her because she rocked my world and then scurried away into the night, leaving her panties behind like a sexy Cinderella, but I don’t.
“When we were breathing together, it felt like I’d finally figured out what my lungs were for. My breaths matter when they match yours.”
“Don’t say that; they always matter.” The indignation in her voice makes me smile into the dark.
“Well, then it felt like they mattered more.”
Margot huffs, but a moment later, she asks, “How long did it take for you to realize you loved me?”
I chuckle into her hair, pulling her tighter. “However long it took you to remember how to breathe.”