Chapter 25 Iris #3
“I don’t see the point in disappointing you,” he says mildly, the calm of his voice almost cruel against what he’s doing. His fingers don’t slow down. “Come for me, Midnight.”
I let go completely, and it hits hard enough that I pitch backward.
He’s there instantly, holding me upright while my orgasm rips through me. For one suspended moment, I could lift my gaze and learn exactly who he is.
But I down the temptation. Not because he’s told me not to. But because I respect him too much. And because I know myself well enough not to destroy my own integrity for curiosity.
The water shuts off.
I reach for a towel and turn just enough to offer it back.
“Here,” I say. “I’ll grab another.”
Before I can move, he takes it from my hands and drapes it around my shoulders instead.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I step out, leaving him in the steam and shadow. When I return, his mask is back in place, seamless, as if it was never gone.
I help him dry, and my hands don’t second-guess. Everything about him has become familiar now.
He looks at me, and I have to remind myself that I’m the one unmasked.
“You don’t mind it?” I ask.
“Not at all.” His voice is sincere. “You’re the most exquisite thing I’ve ever touched. How could I?”
Later, we settle on the futon. He pulls me in, spooning me from behind, his arm firm around my waist.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “This bed isn’t exactly rooftop luxury.”
“I’d choose this every time, Midnight.”
I turn in his arms to face him. The moment stretches, somehow fragile.
“So,” I say softly, “why no kissing in the first place?”
“Long story.”
“We’ve got all night,” I tell him.
He exhales. “You do. I don’t.”
“You d—”
His finger comes to my lips, gentle but decisive. “This is the truth of it,” he says. “Sex is an urge. A kiss is a privilege. Love is a consequence.”
He delivers it without inflection.
Then he continues, the pause before it doing more than a change in tone. “But with someone this honest—” his finger presses harder against my mouth, “—the notion of a clean line between them doesn’t hold.”
Something in my chest goes utterly still. It’s not just because of what he’s admitting, but because I know what it cost him to say it. This is the truth that ended our Game before.
And he’s choosing to give it to me anyway.
“I have my reasons to be who I am,” he continues. “There’s been more times in my life where I wasn’t loved than times when I was.”
My heart aches. “Wolf…” I lift my hand to his cheek, my fingertips brushing the edge of his mask.
“Don’t pity me.”
“I’m not.” I shake my head. “I just…feel lucky. That you let me kiss you.”
“I trust you.”
The word presses inward. “So,” I ask carefully, “you’ve never kissed anyone before?”
A huff escapes him. “Not to steal your thunder, but there was one.”
He does steal it.
“It was during a Game.” His body recoils by a fraction, then holds. “I’d played with her many times. She was loyal. Or so I believed. When she begged, I let her kiss me.” His hand closes around mine. “And while she kissed me, she tried to take my condom off.”
“Oh shit,” I breathe, shocked.
“She thought I wouldn’t notice. Thought the moment would cover it.”
“She had no right!”
“Yeah, so I sent her away and banished her.” His voice turns cold. “But the damage was done. A kiss isn’t just a kiss when someone uses it to take something from you.”
Understanding settles in me.
“So,” he says, “are we now clear that I don’t have an intimacy issue?”
I meet him head-on. “Then kiss me.”
His hands frame my face, and slowly, his mouth closes over mine, giving me time to feel the shape of him, the weight of his attention. He sets the pace and lets the kiss build until I’m responding instead of thinking.
Then he takes more, enough that my breath breaks, and my body tips toward his. Whatever rule existed before this doesn’t survive the contact.
I whimper his name into his throat. Helpless. In awe.
When we part, my voice is barely there. “Please stay.”
“You know I can’t promise that.”
“Just for a while?”
He hesitates, but then he gives in. “Okay.”
I wait for him to say the game is over. But he never does. He just keeps me close, and for the first time, I wonder if this was never meant to end.
Somewhere between dawn and actual morning, Wolf leaves. I feel it more than see it, the empty space behind me and the blanket drawn over my body. I let him go and drift back under, content enough to sleep again.
The knock wakes me later.
I pad to the door, still slow, still warm. On the other side stands a taxi driver, taking me in with heroic professionalism and only partial success.
That’s when I realize.
The shower didn’t quite win.
I glance down. Red and gold still cling to my skin in defiant patches. Apparently, I’ve evolved into something between an artist and a decorative bird.
“Hi, I’m Reuben. My customer said you might need a lift into the city,” the driver says.
“Ah, yes.” I rub my eyes. “I do, actually.” I have a car to retrieve. Of course I do.
“And he asked me to give you this.” He takes something out of the passenger seat.
I freeze. The bouquet is huge. They’re fresh-cut roses with no ribbons and no glossy wrapping. Just stems gathered together with a simple length of rope. They’re alive with scent. From the rooftop garden, maybe.
“Thank you,” I say. “Let me put these in a vase, and I’ll get ready. I won’t be long.”
“And this too,” he adds, lifting a brown bag. “If you’ve got the hands for it.”
I hug the roses to my chest to free one arm. Thorns bite my skin, but I barely register them. I take the bag, go back inside, and set everything down.
The roses come first. I trim the stems, then drop them into water.
They change the room instantly, but not the way a painting does. It’s brighter and more vivid in a way that a true romantic can appreciate. Wait…Me? Romantic? Since when?
Then I open the bag.
Inside are a dozen paint tubes. Irid. Rich Gold, Series 3, and two crimsons that I know by heart. Along with Quinacridone PR206 and Permanent Alizarin PR177. The same pigments I’d squeezed onto the canvas. He hadn’t approximated. He’d checked.
There’s a note tucked between them.
To replenish your supplies.
I laugh under my breath. As I move through the space to get ready, I keep drifting back to what we made last night. Our footprints still stain the concrete, and paint smeared and tracked where we moved, all of it starting from that first stretch of linen on the floor.
“Not bad,” I murmur. “Not bad at all.”
I crouch beside the canvas, following the impressions, the drag of bodies, and the places where paint thinned and pooled. I trace the outline where his weight pressed into it.
And then I see it.
Almost at the center, but lower. Off to the left.
“Oh my God! Is that—”
I don’t finish the thought. Because whatever it is, he didn’t just leave paint behind.