Chapter 41
Dolphins splashed over border tiles. Steam fogged from the hot water pouring out of the shower head. In the small bathroom I sat up on the counter watching Dig undress. Already shirtless he unlatched his belt, flinging it off his jeans, making it snap in the air.
That snap did something to my thighs.
“Princess.” He jerked his chin to me. “Take off your clothes or I’ll do it for you.”
I liked both of those options. “You can’t shower with your sunglasses on.”
He lost his smirk. I clutched his arm and tugged him to stand between my legs.
“Let me help you with that,” I said, keeping my voice light.
His chest moved up and down, he looked as if I had asked to pull a tooth from him. He remained still as I reached up, slowly, carefully, holding either end of his sunglasses and pulled them away to reveal those eyes.
He was already looking down at me.
His gaze soft, he laid his sight solely on me as if the world had slipped away and only I remained.
He became a statue, a perfect sculpted figure of an old God.
He seemed to be waiting. I think he was waiting for me to turn away, waiting for me to frown, waiting for me to swallow down a hard lump in my throat while I fought to urge to heave. Waiting to comment on his eyes.
I smiled instead.
His jaw hitched, unsure.
I reached up and cupped his cheek. “I’m so jealous of those long eyelashes. How do I get eyelashes like that?”
That hitching jaw eased, and his lips peeled up into a delicate smile. There were oceans in those eyes of his, calm and raging, rough and gentle. Oceans of emotions he was still trying to swim through, but I sensed he was drowning.
His lips parted. He wanted to tell me something. Anything. Yet, it seemed he did not have the suitable words. He reached up and rested his hand over mine that held his cheek, brushing his thumb over my knuckles.
“Where you come from is meaningless,” I said. “It doesn't determine who you are. You can be yourself. My grandparents and parents used their money to push thousands into prisons, my brother Magnus is…”
“A piece of shit.”
I sprung my brows high.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right. He put a clode implant in me.”
“He what?” Dig lost his softness and subpoenaed anger. He dropped his hand from mine. “He fucking what?”
“He put clode in me.” I picked at my fingernails.
“He’s after my inheritance. Making me Soulless means I have no rights now and I’m likely to die in prison or the next Execution Battle.
He’s always been smart like that, knowing how to beat his opponents.
I just… I just… never thought I was his opponent. ”
My heart hurled into my ribs.
Something burned under my eyes.
“Oh.” Dig breathed out the words, wrangling his fingers though his hair, pulling at the roots and stepped away to digest what I had said. “Clode.”
The burning behind my eyes became inflamed.
Dig lost his concern and slapped his hands on the counter. “Wait, this means you’re not Soulless. Your heart is going to beat properly.”
“Well, no, it doesn’t.”
He placed his hand on my heart, searching for the thrashing beat. “It’s a little fast.”
I pushed his hand away. “Because I’m upset.”
“Princess.” He cupped my cheeks, pulling my face up to his. “Do you know what this means? Your heart is going to look for its Soulmate.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Of course it will.”
“I’ve probably had dump loads of clode in me for years, if you have it in you that long it messes with your hormones permanently. I’m Soulless. My heart will never beat for my Soulmate.”
Dig’s eyes widened, his lips turned down.
“It’s probably why I don’t feel anything.” I dug my nails into my palms and looked away with shame. “Why everything feels empty, why I can’t relate to people, why death is nothing, why I can’t… I can’t even cry! There is so much wrong with me.”
Dig looked at me the way a person does when they’re watching a burning building they can’t save.
That was me.
There was nothing inside left to salvage, nothing worthy, nothing beautiful. I was charred, ruined, a person who never bloomed.
“Come here.” Dig wrapped his arms around me and placed me in the safe harbour of his chest. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There is, Dig.”
“Show me all the parts of yourself you don’t love, so I know where to begin.”
“I’m barely human.”
“Of course you’re not a human. You’re a goddess, a deity, you’re a dream. That’s what you are.”
I clung to him. It felt like I was burning, drowning, getting sawed in half. “I'm so sorry,” I said to him. “I'm so sorry I can’t be normal. I’m so sorry I can’t feel things like everyone else.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel anything,” he said, pressing his lips to the top of my head. “You don’t need to feel anything. I don’t need you to feel anything. We can be like this, for all time. Just you and me, that’s all that matters.”
He deserved more than this. My belly swirled with dread, my lower lip quivered, that burning behind my eyes became scorching and a raindrop slid from my eye and down my cheek.
“What?” I whispered, reaching up to touch the little droplet of water.
“Princess?”
“I cried.”
Dig lifted my face, watching the tear mark its track down my skin and brushed his thumb over it to wipe it away.
“I’m crying.” A second tear dribbled out of my eye, and then a third.
Sweet agony and suffering fizzed up inside of me, ready to burst. Hot, sticky, pounding and so very lovely. The tears fell, each one precious and horrible.
Dig smiled, his eyes sweeping over my tears. “You cried, Princess. I’m so proud of you.”
“I seriously thought I was a psychopath for a little while there.” My crying turned ugly. “Oh freckles, I’m not a psychopath.”
“You’re not a psychopath.”
“But… but I’m Soulless.”
“Fuck Soulmates,” he said. “I want you on purpose.”
He crushed his lips onto mine. Starving for the taste of him, I kissed back.
His tongue pressed between my lips, a plea for me to open and so I did, and we collided into each other, devouring.
He smelled like leather, like blood. With his arms around me, his chest over mine, his hands going through my hair… he felt like home.
We lived there, together in each other’s world, two lost Soulless souls reaching out their hands in the silent night of this world and finding each other.
Dig kissed my lips, he kissed my tears, he kissed my neck and took off my shirt to kiss both of my breasts. He travelled his lips over my skin as if he were sinking secrets into me.
In the shower, as the waterfall of warm water cascaded over us, Dig continued to kiss me, getting on his knees. And there, as he bowed in front of me, he held the backs of my thighs and worshiped me with his tongue until I erupted from the mess of his adoration.
He washed me, devotedly, running the cloth over my skin, caressing me clean, digging his fingers into my scalp with shampoo.
I traced over the arcs of his chest, learning each abdominal line, mapping over the contours of his body, the strength of his thighs and thickness of his cock.
While I took him in my mouth, he brushed his thumb over my cheek smiling down at me until he came undone, groaning, filling my mouth with his seed.
He dried me with a towel and carried me into our bed and we spent our last night in the cocoon of the bedroom.
I got on all fours as he kissed me between my legs, making me drip with need, and then he pounded into me until I eclipsed into bliss.
I rode him on top, panting through each thrust, his hands holding my ass, digging his nails into my soft flesh, urging me faster and then slower and then fast again.
We looked at each other. I looked into his eyes—his—the eyes that belonged to him and no one else and he looked back at me without once flicking his sight away.
Morning tendrilled rays of light under the hem of the paisley print curtains.
I lay nested in Dig’s arms, our naked bodies knitted into each other.
Playing with a strand of his dark hair, I kissed his sleeping mouth, enjoying the way the sunlight spilled across his skin, highlighting the roll of his biceps.
I pushed a sleeping Dig Graves over to lay on his back, nibbled his earlobe and stroked his cock to harden.
“Princess.” He growled as he awoke, pressing his fingers into his eyes to wipe away sleep. “How do you have this much energy?”
“This time, I want you to pull my hair and bite me, right when I’m about to come. I don’t care where you bite, surprise me.”
A tired sigh heaved from his lips. “You know yesterday someone stabbed me in my back.”
“Are you dying?”
“No, but—”
“We only have an hour left and we are back in prison.” I snapped my teeth down on his earlobe.
“Gah!” He suddenly became more awake and snatched my chin, bringing my face to meet his.
A strand of my hair fell and mingled with his black hair, messy from my hands.
His lips were raw and bruised from my own, there was a love mark just under his other ear from where I had sucked on his skin to bloom red.
I was all over Dig Graves. He wore me like his best clothing, like his favourite moisturiser, like one of his tattoos inked forever into him.
He was on my own skin too. He was inside of me.
Surely this was another kind of Soulmate? Two people so intoxicated and enveloped into each other. We had gift-wrapped ourselves and given over our bodies, our minds, our souls without expecting something in return. Maybe we were better than Soulmates.
Dig twitched with playful irritation at my bite, showcasing his infamous glower and slipped his hand down my waist, ready to devastate me in beautiful ways. “You bite me, you get bitten back.”
We kissed instead of biting.
Dig pulled me to him. His dark eyes shimmered, looking down at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get us out of here. I had a plan, but it didn’t work.”
I shrugged. “When we get back into prison, I’ll need you to kill a few people. I want a private cell.”
“I can do that.”
Outside a voice called, “Dig Graves and Delphine De Astor come out here and die!”