Anne
“How do you expect me not to kill anyone tonight?” he muttered for the third time that evening.
I’d never realised how emotionally fragile men truly were until Ethan. Sure, he was a hardened serial killer with zero remorse. Yet he couldn’t cope with my blood-red dress for my exhibition.
“Just dribble a little piss on me—I heard that can be a sensory deterrent,” I said, flipping the sun visor down to check my makeup.
His head snapped toward me. The car swerved, horns blared, and I reached for my lip gloss. I set my purse back on my lap and touched up my lips, listening to his long, deep, meditative breaths.
“You do realise that I am perfectly capable of killing anyone who oversteps the mark,” I said, screwing the lid back on the gloss.
“I suppose,” he grumbled.
I placed my hand over his. He mumbled something under his breath.
“This is my first date,” I said casually, squeezing his hand.
His brow smoothed, and when he glanced over, his eyes were deep and warm. I ignored the fluttering sensation in my belly and patted his hand.
“I’ll make sure that it’s an excellent night,” he said, straightening his back and tilting his head up.
“Such a gentleman.”
“We both know that’s a lie,” he chuckled.
I leaned on the headrest.
It was just as well because I sure as fuck was no lady.
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No matter where I went in the gallery, Ethan was either at my side or glaring at me from afar with that brooding intensity of his. He needed a new hobby or something—I’d had no idea how tormented he was over me.
When the noise, the names, the attention all became too much, I climbed the stairs to retreat. From my new vantage point, I could watch people admiring my work.
Farida had curated the show. The venue had promoted it well, and the art snobs came in droves to see the new Selbourne collection. Everyone took their cut.
Footsteps echoed in the negative space of the top floor, and Ethan wrapped his arms around my waist.
“We can go if you like. Most of your pieces have already sold,” he murmured.
“I want to watch a while longer,” I said, gripping the polished wooden handrail, grinding my buttocks slowly against him.
He’d stayed in his lane all night. When I was pulled away to meet buyers or the press, Ethan held back—we were both used to living in the shadows. But one man kept touching my arm, my waist, and had the audacity to kiss my hand.
Enchanté, indeed.
I could have stopped him at any time. When he left my side, I could have stopped him kissing my cheek too. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Ethan. He’d gone all out for my exhibition—black bow tie, hair and stubble groomed to perfection, just the right amount of cologne.
Only I could see what he wanted to do to that man. I pictured him strapped to Ethan’s operating table. Ethan was not a kind man. He was not a good man. Yet tentatively, I trusted him with my body, and perhaps one day my heart.
I looked around at the room full of attendees.
We were all capable of terrible things.
They saw the darkness in my art and were drawn to it anyway. A piece of their soul, mine to claim.
First Breath Born was a hit, sparking a bidding war.
That one was different from the rest—softer, but its core still imbued with darkness and lung tissue. It kept drawing the eye to the chaotic black birth of life.
I smiled.
The lower section, dusted with testes and powdered glitter.
“I don’t like them all staring at you. At your work. If anyone is going to admire or worship you, it’s me,” Ethan murmured, cupping my breasts.
“You’ve had more of me than anyone else,” I said, twisting my head until his lips brushed mine.
“It’s never enough,” he muttered before his mouth closed over mine.
The kiss began slow and sensual, but the heat between us had been simmering from the moment he’d laid eyes on me tonight. Sharp evaluation giving way to animal need. His hand moved to my throat, squeezing, as his tongue plunged deep into my mouth.
His hardening length nestled between my cheeks as he rocked his hips. His other hand peeled the straps of my dress away, baring my breasts in such a prestigious venue. All I could do was grip the handrail as his hunger took us both.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes molten and bright, pinning me in place as if he could weld our future together with a single look. His hands closed around my breasts.
“I want you to move in with me. Treat my home as yours. We can build you a studio—I have plenty of land,” he said, his voice steady, though the stiffness beneath it betrayed the answer he expected.
The thought of my studio sitting in its own little outbuilding almost made me laugh. Ethan couldn’t comprehend my artistic process or the glorious chaos that came with it, but this was his version of an olive branch.
“Is this a proposal?” I teased.
His fingers stilled against my nipples.
“Do you want to get married?”
I glanced at the ordinary people below us. Our union would be anything but ordinary. We were two jagged halves, trying to discover whether we could ever fit together.
“Yes, let’s do it. What’s the worst that could happen?” I murmured.
Silence.
I felt him thinking, recalculating. Then he pulled my bodice back into place, slid the straps onto my shoulders, and smoothed them flat.
“We’re leaving,” he announced with the urgency of a man whose entire world had just shifted.
He twirled me around, grabbed my hand, and we practically ran for the elevator. Once inside, he cornered me against the cold wall of the lift, his back to the doors like a shield. The frantic energy inside me settled.
I breathed him in, wrapping my arms around his neck, clinging to him with a need I never knew existed.
He made me want to live—to discover what else I’d been missing.
“Ethan,” I whispered.
“I know, Anne,” he sighed. “I know.”