Chapter 91
Quill
Sylvester
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
(A Man After Midnight)
ABBA
I should have felt indifferent walking into this place – dressed in a blue evening dress.
Especially with Lara – in a copper-colored satin dress – walking to my right and Davian – in a black three-piece suit with a midnight-blue tie – walking to my left.
But not even the festive lights, the hundreds of high-ranking guests – including some fellow students – or the bustling staff carrying exotic platters of food managed to make me forget everything that had happened in this place.
Instinctively, I looked around the crowded entrance hall for my father, spotted him immediately, engrossed in conversation with men his age, all of whom nodded approvingly at him and patted him on the shoulder as if he were the man of the evening.
Not just because he was the host. No. They all assumed that Arnold would announce today that Joseph would soon be taking over the management of Maplecrest Law.
Anthony stepped into my line of sight, his jaw tense as he stared at us from across the large foyer, as if he were about to pick up where he had left off nearly two weeks ago.
Lara let go of my arm with a sigh.
“I’ll make sure he stays off your backs.”
And with those words, she rushed over to Tony and dragged him along with her, which didn’t seem to please him, as his gaze toward Davian darkened, but he let Lara pull him away.
My line of sight was clear again. And now my father was staring directly at us.
They’ve All Gone
Mr. Kamera
I expected him to glare at me with hatred, to show me all his loathing with a single look, but he… smiled.
It wasn’t a pleasant smile, nor a friendly one… It was one that made the marrow in my bones freeze.
If only he knew what a mistake it had been to invite us here…
A group of elegantly dressed men entered our field of vision, and for a moment Davian’s hand brushed my back, bringing me back to the present.
I tried to calm the chaos inside me, looked to the side, only to have it confirmed that his searching gaze was fixed on me.
What I would give to be able to hold his hand right now. But that wasn’t possible. It would ruin our plan.
There were a lot of important people here today. Just like at the Fitzek Gala. Except that the director of Maplecrest Law, along with other members of his select circle, would be nominating the candidates for the university's directorship tonight.
Everyone knew that no one would dare to put forward a candidate against Arnold’s candidate. And everyone knew who Arnold’s candidate was.
The last time I had seen that deranged criminal had been before Monica had let me in on yet another disturbing truth about this man. One I still hadn’t fully processed to this day.
There was nothing obvious in Davian’s appearance or personality that hinted at this fact, and I had no intention of searching for it either.
Growing up far away from the Fitzeks was the best thing that could have happened to him.
Monica hadn’t told Davian yet, and I dreaded the moment he would find out.
But all those years…
A couple pushed past us, and I automatically moved closer to Davian, who immediately – with one hand on my lower back – guided me to one of the windows at the edge of the room, where he was greeted by two well-dressed men I didn’t know, who immediately eyed me curiously.
We stood out too much. Because Davian had control over every aspect of his life, except his hands, which had been seeking mine more strongly and more frequently than ever since Christmas.
My Home
Myles Smith
Christmas was something I definitely still had to get used to.
Even though I couldn’t imagine life anymore without the scent of Lara’s Christmas cinnamon stars, the taste of Davian’s buttered potatoes with parsley and Monica’s roast chicken, the soft sound of Christmas jazz that had been drifting quietly through the house all day, and Lara’s scented candles.
I still had to get used to the many photos and that surreal feeling of having a family that would truly fight for me if push came to shove.
Monica had only been there for a few hours on Christmas Eve, and she and Davian had talked. For a long time.
I only knew from Lara that he didn’t know the whole story yet, because Monica needed more strength for the harder part and didn’t want to overwhelm Davian.
Davian had told me that he would need time, but that he would hate to lose her as a family member, and that she now knew everything except for the part concerning me, Joseph, and my fake ID.
She knew about us.
But she hadn’t said anything else, which shouldn’t worry me, yet that was exactly what it did. And it hadn’t helped that she had hugged me in the kitchen for a fleeting moment, saying “I’m sorry,” and shed a tear.
I loved her son. And I was a child in her eyes. A child the same age as her granddaughter.
That didn't seem to unsettle Davian in the slightest, because every time I asked him about Monica's opinion, he said that there would always be people in our lives who would try to come between us, because they saw a number where we had never even learned to count.
It felt good to have a partner who refused to doubt us, even though he had a thousand reasons to. Reasons that would vanish into thin air over time. I could feel it…
Lara had spent the past few days alternating between us and Monica, assuring us countless times with amusement that we didn’t have to hide from her, and I was firmly convinced that all the stepmother jokes were some kind of coping mechanism that we both already laughed about.
God, I would never be a mother to her. She knew that very well. And if not, the next time she called me that, I wouldn’t just throw her stuffed animals at her. I would bury her under them.
Surprisingly, she was the one who assured me that not every family had to look the same to be a healthy family. That there was no right or wrong, and above all, no strict norm.
Her openness confused not only me, but Davian as well.
I understood why he held back in her presence, that he was cautious because all three of us had to get used to the new situation.
We had both really tried to interact as usual in front of Lara to avoid making it seem strange or uncomfortable for her. As if there were nothing more than friendship between us. But every time she hadn't been in the same room as us, we hadn't been able to keep our hands off each other.
Every night he had sneaked into my room, slipped under my blanket and pressed himself against me from behind, showing me with his tongue, his fingers, and his bare hardness how much he had missed me, whispering in my ear all the things he planned to do with me as soon as he had me all to himself.
They were things that came from a suppressed part of him and that he had deliberately not done with me in this house.
Things that made the scar beneath my breast ache with longing.
Because even though I enjoyed his gentle closeness, something inside me begged to serve that obsessed part of him that stimulated his creativity.
That part that spoke to my scars through controlled pain.
I didn’t know how many times we had made love in the last seven days. All I knew was that I had never climaxed so often in a single week.
In his bed, in mine, on his desk, on his workbench, behind the couch, on the stairs…
This morning he had surprised me from behind in the shower, pressed me against the wall with one hand over my mouth, simply slid into me, and repeatedly thrust himself inside me with unrestrained intensity before cumming against my thighs.
Not without washing me millimeter by millimeter afterward, as if I were a fragile antique.
And the mere thought of how he had let me ride his fingers while reading in his bed last night made my knees go weak.
As incredibly intoxicating as the sex with him was, it was the little moments I wanted to hold onto forever in bittersweet daydreams.
When, while we were writing together, he reached for my hand out of nowhere and filled it intently with lines I wished would burn themselves into my skin.
When he put the necklace around my neck in the morning and kissed my neck as if I were centuries-old paper, ready to crumble beneath his fingertips.
When he fell asleep at night while writing and I found him there at his desk in the morning, slipped a pillow under his head, and let my fingers drift through the few gray strands in his hair.
Age was something beautifully complicated. Something misunderstood. People tried to separate it from youth, to clearly isolate it. Yet both were fluid and interconnected.
ocean eyes
Billie Eilish
I turned to Davian and, for a moment, forgot why we were here. Where we were.
The man into whose hands I would place my fragile core. The soul that deserved more than this broken world. The little boy I would hold in my arms if fate were to try to break him.
I would be with him. Until age caught up with us. And if there was such a thing as an afterlife, my ink essence would seek out his, would find him over and over again.
He was my family now. Something I would protect as long as I had the strength to do so. And longer.
Already, I longed to take him by the hand and pull him into the library to find out what he had planned for me last August.
Pull yourself together, Quill.
When I realized that Davian was staring at me, the corners of my mouth curled upward.
A faint blush rose to his cheeks, as if he weren’t the man who, when we were alone, would wrap my hair around his fist, pull me close to him, and whisper the most depraved things into my ear while his erection was deep inside me.
Fading Hours
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
“Davian”
A blond man his age, who looked like a well-aged version of Ken, patted him on the shoulder and completely ignored me, unlike the short, stocky man with the well-groomed beard standing next to him, who eyed me as if I were a juicy piece of meat and he were a caveman.