Chapter 10
Aurora
I stare, panting, at the shut bathroom door.
Even though Curse told me to lock it, I don’t have the energy.
My limbs feel like freshly-stretched pasta.
My pussy feels swollen, sore, inflamed beyond all reason.
It’s wet down there, and when I finally muster up the strength to take a look, my skin is shiny with my own arousal, his saliva, and the pinkish tinge of blood.
I lift a shaking hand, running my fingertips over the sensitive flesh, then flinch. I’ve never liked touching myself down there. I avoid it as much as I can.
Why doesn’t it bother me when Curse touches me there? Licks me. Makes me come.
He’s the only one I’ve ever wanted there. The monster who’s probably murdered more than ten times the number of people that he’s fucked. Go figure.
Once I have some steadiness in me, I get back in the shower to clean up a bit.
Letting the water run over my skin, I replay our conversation.
He’s only had sex with two women before me, both of them prostitutes.
I can’t figure out why he’d need to pay someone, though.
He’s the most beautiful male I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Occasionally, over the years, I’ve wondered if the distance between us, and my own besotted feelings for him, had exaggerated his physical perfection.
But they didn’t. He could have anyone he wants in his bed.
At any time. So why the need to hire professionals?
It’s probably fucking pathetic, but a foolish part of me is glad he’s only ever been with pros, assuming he was telling the truth, anyway. It means that he’s never had a committed, sexual relationship with anyone else. He’s never really dated.
He’s never been in love.
It’s unlikely that he’s even capable of that sort of emotion, in all honesty, so it’s completely stupid that this makes me even the tiniest bit happy. I’m happy that he’s never wanted to fuck someone outside of a coldly clinical business arrangement.
Except me.
My skin flames. My pussy pounds between my thighs.
He’s gone down on me. More than once.
And he fucked me before he needed to for the legality of our marriage.
Could I have simply taken the place of one of his whores?
If his words are to be believed, he hasn’t had sex in more than a decade.
For a man who looks like he’s got enough testosterone in him to take down an entire gym full of weight-lifters, he has to have had some pent-up need building in him over all those years.
I’m here, I’m convenient, and obviously, for some messed-up reason, I’m willing.
I came twice on the counter just now, even though I didn’t mean to. Even though it hurt.
I grit my teeth against the memory. Why do I keep letting him do this?
Why do I keep letting him in, when I should be doing everything in my power to push him away?
Why does it feel like he’s teaching me something about myself, recovering something vital, every time he touches me, every time he makes me come?
Why does it feel like, behind the glass walls of her cage, the little girl I keep locked inside me is fucking singing after years of nothing but silence and screaming?
These questions batter me while I finish up in the shower and then emerge. I left my towel behind on the counter, so I pad over to it, dripping all over the floor, and wrap it around myself once more. It’s cold and damp now, and there’s a reddish stain on it from where it was beneath me.
I’m going to need another pad from my bag. It’s just as I’m considering venturing downstairs in my towel to get it that it appears, carried by Curse, who strides through the door.
Just the sight of him again makes my heart twist beneath my ribs. He’s so beautiful. And so cold. Not a trace of what he just did to me remains in the flat shadow of his gaze.
Except…
Oh, God.
“There’s blood on your face!”
It’s small but unmistakable. The reddish tint to his lips and chin. Humiliation flames under my skin. Curse, however, looks entirely unaffected. It’s like he didn’t even hear me.
“You didn’t lock the door.”
“I…Oh. No, I guess I didn’t. I forgot.”
He’ll have to forgive me for that, considering he’s the one who basically turned my brain into nothing but flickering static and my legs to noodles.
But there’s no forgiveness on his face. There’s an icy tension around his eyes.
“I told you to lock it.” He sets down the suitcase he’s carried up the stairs and crosses his arms over his chest. In the time he’s been gone, he’s put on a black T-shirt, the fabric moulded to his muscles. “You should have listened.”
“Well, I-”
“There is no, ‘well,’” he interrupts coolly.
“There are no ‘buts.’ When I tell you to do something, you have to fucking do it. Especially once we are out of this house. Messina is still out there, and who knows how many people he’s got hunting you.
He obviously had somebody in Montreal who tipped him off about us on that train.
” He grasps the suitcase handle, extending it so he can roll it, which he does as he approaches me.
The wheels click smoothly over the floor.
He comes to a stop before me and tilts the suitcase my way, offering me the handle.
I take it, my fingertips brushing his knuckles.
My breath quickens. The air goes thick between us.
“You may not like me,” he says, voice dropping lower. “But I’m going to need you to at least try to trust me. If I tell you to lock a door, you lock it. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to call the fucking cops-”
“The cops?”
His eyes glint. Onyx and ice.
“If I tell you to, you do it. No arguments, no questions.”
He’s right. His life could very well depend on it. Alessandro needs me alive, at least long enough to marry me and keep me for thirty days. But he wants Curse entirely out of the equation. He already nearly killed him once. He fully planned on the drugs doing the job.
I nod, the walls of my throat sticking together.
“It’s not exactly that I don’t like you or trust you,” I manage to murmur. “It’s just that…maybe I don’t know you.” I fiddle with the suitcase’s handle, avoiding his gaze. I’ve still got my goddamn wedding nail polish on from New York. My voice falls to a whisper. “I knew Accursio. But you are…”
“Somebody else,” he supplies.
I nod once more.
He observes me in silence for so long that I give up on waiting for any more continuation of the conversation.
Crouching awkwardly in my towel, I tip the suitcase to lay it down, then unzip it.
The box of pads is on top from last time, the cardboard ripped open at the end.
I grab a pad, then start digging around for an outfit.
Going for comfort, I select granny panties, sweatpants, and a soft sweater.
I can feel the cold burn of Curse’s eyes on me as I stick the pad to the underwear, then shimmy it all up my legs.
Quickly, I do the same with the sweatpants and then throw on the sweater, forgoing a bra for now.
I know there’s a stick of deodorant in the bag somewhere – one of what feels like the millions that Curse procured for me – but I’m too embarrassed to put it on in front of him.
Which is probably dumb, because he just had his head between my fucking legs.
That still makes no sense. If it weren’t for the tinge of dried blood on his face, visually proving what happened, I’d probably be wondering if I dreamed it.
“Here.” His voice catches me by surprise. He’s got something else in his left hand that I didn’t see before, too focused on the suitcase he carried with his right. He opens his fist to reveal a small tube of antiseptic cream and a large adhesive bandage. I stare blankly down at the offering.
“For your head,” he adds. He taps his temple with his right index finger. “Just had my fucking mouth there, and I’ve never been one for kissing things better. You’re probably going to get an infection at this rate.”
A blush heats my cheeks as I remember how things started.
With him tasting that tender place by my hairline, groaning like a starving man.
To distract from the sensation, the searing memory, I take the bandage and the tube from him.
In the moment before he lets his empty hand fall, I glimpse the single tattoo on the centre of his left palm. The solitary capital A.
“What does that stand for? The A?” I ask him.
He appears not to even register the question. There’s no flicker of emotion or recognition on his face. He shifts his gaze somewhere behind me – to the mirror. Maybe he’s watching our reflections. Maybe he isn’t watching anything at all.
“Another time,” he says.
“Wait, like, the A stands for that phrase? For the word ‘another?’ Or you’ll tell me another time?”
He doesn’t answer.
I don’t know why I even bothered hoping that he would.