CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TESSA
His touch is magical, easing the tension my body has been harboring, and his warning has a confounding sense of comfort and triumph coiling around me.
A bit of a chill, too, but I dismiss that and bask in the warmth.
He rinses my hair, dries his hands, and leaves while I finish washing.
I’m completely speechless, far surpassing the post-migraine fog.
Two minutes later, music croons, and he reemerges, setting my tea on the side of the tub and presenting one of my drawings. “You’re so fucking talented. Do you sell these?”
Whiplash.
“Uh … I did … I do.” My brain is no longer functioning, so I finish off the lukewarm beverage. “Under a pseudonym. I started when I wasn’t working at La Lune Noire.”
His attention bounces between me and the sketch. “I thought you worked at a makeup store.”
Unfazed at this point, I close my eyes and relax into my neck pillow. “You could pretend you don’t know things.”
“I didn’t know you sold your art. You should do it for real, like as an illustrator or—”
“I am … kinda.” My heart pounds my sternum as a sneak a peek at him. “I do commissioned pieces for authors.”
“Spicy ones.” His smile bleeds through that reply. There might even be pride. And maybe sadness. “But you hide it from everyone.”
“So?”
He doesn’t answer. He disappears again, and I listen. To the music and packing and pans clattering from the kitchen. There’s a lump in my throat I can’t quite explain.
When I get out, he’s there. With a towel and my pajamas.
And inquiries that feel like too much.
“Who lets you break? You act so unshakable, and you’re always the one taking care of people. You don’t even do it with Mercy—”
“Don’t include Mercy in whatever this is.” I wrap the towel around me and amble back to my room. “She loves me for me.”
“She does. Fiercely,” he agrees while I dry myself off and comb my hair. “But you still don’t let yourself break with her. These lists aren’t the way to do it either.”
“What’s your point?” I bark, grabbing the camisole he’s holding for me and putting it on.
“I can be that for you,” he rasps, sucking all the oxygen out of my apartment.
If he wanted sex right now, even with my queasy stomach and foggy head, I could handle it, but this …
“Be what?” It’s barely a whisper.
“Your safe place.” He widens the elastic on a pair of pajama pants for me to step into them, and once I do, he pulls me against him and tips my chin. “Your armor. You can break with me.”
“What is this, Maddox? Is this some ploy to get me to cry? I haven’t had a hard life, I’m not lugging a lot of emotional baggage around, and I’m not a crier.”
“I don’t need your tears, Tess. Unless I’m fucking your throat.
But I want the parts you keep locked away.
Pain, disappointments, dreams. I’m not scared of your crazy, your darkness, or your demons.
Mine are bigger, which makes them a perfect shelter for yours.
You’re gonna have to start fucking trusting me though. ”
My chest heaves against him, my throat uncomfortably tight with emotion. “In the spirit of being transparent, I’ll tell you that I trust you more than most people. But I’m not there yet.”
“Why?” he presses, palming my wet mop of hair.
“Because”—I squirm away, moving to my bed and taking a seat—“you made a hell of a lot more sense when I knew what the expectations were. But you’ve got me all twisted up. You haven’t even touched me. What is this?”
“The only thing I want in return is you, exactly how you are. That’s why you’re all twisted up. It’s scary because, other than Mercy, that’s not what you’re used to. I intend to change that.”
He’s not wrong. And the truth and his vow crack my chest open, leaving me exposed.
I shake my head, staring at the floor, my soul intent on sharing a fear I’d never willingly approve. “You’re going to hurt me.”
In a flash, he’s stooping before me, his hands on my thighs. “First of all, it took every ounce of willpower I had not to touch you because you are and have always been the most stunning creature I’ve ever seen. But you’re sick, and I need you to know that this is more.”
He flings his hand toward the boxes. “And you know what I think about your goddamn lists? I think you focus on all the small shit so you don’t have to focus on how rough things are with your mom and sisters, or how you killed someone, or how you have a whole family of people at La Lune Noire from the seedy underworld who would do any-fucking-thing for you. ”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.” I don’t even know why I say that when he’s right on the nose.
“I’m not psychoanalyzing you, and I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve never fought for anyone like this, but I already know you’re my person—the one I’ll fight for until my dying breath. Today, when I thought …” He clears his throat. “I went to the hospital because Rena was in labor, and—”
“Rena’s in labor?” I gasp.
“It stopped.” He pauses, and something like nervousness shadows his features. “But I was surrounded by my family, and I wanted you there, needed you there.”
I grapple with that for what feels like forever before I formulate my response. “Rena’s in labor, you have the Fourth of July tomorrow and the employee festival the day after that, and you’re here?”
“Of course.”
Of course? He really is trying to break me.
“I’m not pressuring you, Tess, or expecting anything in return right now. I just thought I should be clear about where I was at. Makarov gets here in a couple of days—”
“Makarov is coming here?” It’s impossible to mask the terror in that question.
“I’m handling it, and I’m moving you into La Lune Noire.
You’re safe, but I know things are hard with your family.
I didn’t want you to doubt any of what I said the other night.
” He leans forward and presses his mouth to mine with the sweetest of kisses before he rises, but there’s a heaviness cloaking him.
“It’s okay. Just rest and munch on a few crackers while I get you some heartier food. ”
Before he’s out of the room, he peers back over his shoulder. “Do you ever scream?” When my forehead creases, he elaborates. “When you’re angry, do you ever just scream?”
What an odd question.
“I live in an apartment, work in a resort that caters to the trigger-happy, and have a family who already doubts my sanity, so no. I veer toward quiet fury.”
A muffled guffaw wafts from him as his gaze floats between that box with my lists and me.
“You’ve mastered that. But you should try screaming.
It’s like dancing. Or sex.” He smirks with that lazy charm of his before subduing it.
“Sometimes, you need to release that fury from your body as much as from your mind.”
“I’ll remember that,” I whisper, touched by how invested he is in my well-being.
“I’ll make sure you do.” He twists farther to face me, his gaze so intense that it needles my flesh and so much more.
“My world is as much another’s dream as it is their nightmare.
But I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m drawn to that duality.
There is no part of you that doesn’t captivate me.
You don’t have to hide your darkness or your dreams, Tess. Both will have a home with me.”
With that soul-stirring pledge, he goes on his way, but he’s barely beyond the doorway when it all slams into me. Everything he said. Everything that had happened these last few weeks. Years. Everything that was right in front of me at my parents’ that day, when I was pleading with Violet.
“I showed up for you that night. I have always shown up for all of you. But who shows up for me, Violet? You know, you’ve all treated me like a heathen for years, and I have never once asked that. I’ve been here, welcome or not. But who shows up for me?”
“Obviously, he does, so go home, Tessa.”
Violet meant that as an insult, but she was so right.
His words are beautiful, but his actions are breathtaking.
“Maddox?”
He peeks his head back in. “Yeah?”
“You want to know why you were on my list every month?”
He nods, wandering back into my room.
“Because I couldn’t not think about you.
No matter what, you were always on my mind, and I …
” I stand and make my way over to him, but I keep my hands to myself.
“It didn’t make sense to write you down.
Those lists are for petty things that irritate me, to let them go.
Not big ones. And since I thought everything you did was for control, which is a sore spot with me, you should’ve been one of the biggest. But I wrote your name down every month to force myself to remember why I shouldn’t think of you beyond that because it was a struggle not to.
Because I’d always thought about you, long before I called you that night. ”
“And now?” His vulnerability shines through that query, even as he towers over me. He always does, but here, with my feet bare, his mammoth stature is undeniable.
And so comforting. Because he isn’t lording it over me. He’s meeting me where I am.
“I’m not good with emotions. Other than anger.
” When he chuckles, I curl my fingers around his belt and tug him toward me.
“I’m not sure what this looks like, and I’m not promising anything yet.
But I obviously couldn’t let you go when I hated you, and since I definitely don’t hate you anymore, I want to try.
So”—I drop to my knees—“let me show you.”
His heated grays are tender and feral as he grazes his knuckles down my cheek. “What about your head?”
“I couldn’t handle coming right now, but I want this.” I unbuckle his pants and wrench down his zipper. “You took care of me all day. Let me return the favor.”
There’s a pall of hesitation shrouding him, but then he dips his chin, reading everything this means.
I’ve had him in my mouth before, but this isn’t a prank or a means of distraction.
This is my tentative reply that I don’t have all the answers.
That I’m scared to lose my family. That I don’t appreciate him going through my things or threatening people on my behalf.
And yet still, he’s broken through some of my walls and become too important to dismiss.
By the time I roll the elastic from his boxer briefs down, he’s hard and glistening.
I curl my fingers around him, lap up the dollop of precum, and devour him.
After I take him all the way into the back of my throat, I toy with him, swirling the head and dragging my tongue slowly over his ladder.
He groans as he pets my hair and rocks his hips into me. Far gentler than suits him.
I pop off and pin him with my demand while still stroking his shaft. “Don’t hold back, Drac. I can take it.”
With that, I’m back on him. Ravenous and savage.
“Christ, baby,” he hisses.
He’s salt and musk and haunting lyrics. The kind I want branded on me.
I knead his balls and brush his taint and bob with a ferocious cadence that I can already sense undoing him.
Since he still isn’t letting go, I murmur unintelligible encouragement around him, and the vibrations of my mouth have him expelling a slew of curses until, finally, he slams into me.
“Is that what you want?” He pants, gathering my sopping strands as he pistons his hips again. “For me to fuck your throat?”
I moan my consent, recalling how afraid he was to hurt me in his office the first time I sucked him off, and here we are again. My head is heavy, but my desire trumps it.
He thrusts again and again, his piercings gliding over my tongue in a rough but gratifying caress, his balls bouncing off my chin.
“Fuck, Tess. You’re so gorgeous. On your knees for me.
Jesus. Give me those beautiful eyes.” When our gazes crash together, he wipes at my cheeks, and the raw authenticity staring back at me is almost too much.
“I love those tears. I want all of you.”
That’s a little overwhelming. I’m not sure how to give him everything I am, but this may be the first time I’m willing to try. It’s unfortunate that we’re falling for each other when our days are very possibly numbered.
Maybe that’s why when he’s about to tip, I make another move to show him I’m in. Removing my mouth from him, I rip my camisole over my head, return my hand to his swelling cock, and peer up at him with my demand. “Come on me, Maddox. Mark me as yours.”
Those words act as a missile launcher.
“More than a dream. My irresistible Nightmare,” he groans as he spasms through his climax, and ropes of his cum spurt onto my breasts and neck and abs. “So gorgeous, painted with me, baby girl.”
While he’s still shaking, I suck the remainder of his release off the head, and he writhes before me.
“That’s my goddamn queen.”
There it is again. Queen. I’m on my knees, covered in cum, at odds with my family, and there’s a Mafia don out for my head, but I’ve never felt more empowered.
Maybe I could learn to embrace that title.