Chapter Nineteen Blue
Chapter Nineteen
Blue
“God, I’m exhausted,” she says suddenly, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “It’s like this day has lasted about three
years. I hate to leave the party, but I think I need to call it a night.”
The admission reminds me that less than twenty-four hours ago, she was being hunted by the Crow and getting chloroformed into
a trunk. Today she met an entire town, accepted my promise to deliver her father’s killers, and just seduced a room full of
strangers with her voice. No wonder she’s running on fumes.
“Come on,” I say, offering my arm. “I’ll walk you up.”
We make our way through the crowd, Saylor accepting final compliments on her performance with tired but genuine warmth. Hands
reach out to squeeze hers, voices murmur praise and promises to see her again soon. She nods and smiles through it all, but
I can see the exhaustion pulling at the corners of her eyes.
The house feels different as we climb the grand staircase, the party sounds fading to a distant murmur below us. Our footsteps
echo softly against the stone, creating an intimate bubble of silence that makes me hyperaware of her presence beside me.
The way her hand rests lightly on my arm, the whisper of fabric as she moves, the lingering scent of her perfume mixed with
wine and warmth.
When we reach her door, she turns to face me, leaning back against the dark wood. The hallway is lit only by a few scattered
candelabras, casting everything in warm golden light that makes her skin glow.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For today. For showing me Grimlock, for the party . . .” Her gaze drifts toward the staircase
where the sounds of celebration continue below. “For the gift. And for what you promised me.”
The way she says gift makes my blood heat. She’s not talking about hospitality or party planning. She’s talking about Sly’s corpse, about the message
Hans and I wrote in blood and flowers.
“Saylor—”
But before I can finish whatever I was going to say, she steps closer and rises on her toes, her hands sliding up my chest
to rest against my shoulders. Her lips brush against mine, soft at first, testing. Then her mouth opens under mine and the
kiss deepens into something that makes my vision blur.
She tastes like spice and sin, like everything I’ve been craving without realizing it. Her tongue slides against mine with
deliberate intent, and when she bites gently at my lower lip, I have to grip the doorframe to keep from pushing her back against
the wood and taking this exactly where my body wants it to go.
Her fingers find the hair at the nape of my neck, tugging just hard enough to make me groan against her mouth. The sound seems
to please her because she smiles against my lips, the curve of her mouth wicked and knowing.
When she finally pulls back, we’re both breathing hard. Her lips are swollen from kissing, her eyes dark with something that
makes my head spin.
“Come inside,” she whispers, her fingers trailing down my chest, finding the buttons of my shirt. “I don’t want this night
to end yet.”
The invitation hangs between us like a loaded gun, and every cell in my body screams yes. I want nothing more than to follow
her into that room, but the rational part of my mind—the part that remembers what Peter meant to me—knows this is exactly
what I can’t do.
“Saylor.” I catch her hand, stilling her fingers against my chest. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.” Her eyes flash with something between challenge and frustration. “I’m not some innocent
little girl who needs protecting from the big bad wolf. I can handle whatever you think you might do to me.”
But that’s exactly what she is, whether she realizes it or not. Peter’s little girl, twenty years younger than me, standing
in a hallway asking me to take something I have no right to take. She thinks she understands the darkness in me, but she’s
spent her whole life around good people. Normal people. She has no idea that I don’t know how to be gentle, that everything
in me would want to own her completely if I let myself have her.
“You deserve someone who can give you flowers and poetry,” I say quietly, my thumb tracing across her knuckles. “Someone who’ll hold you like you’re precious instead of . . .” I trail off, unable to finish the thought.
“Instead of what?” she asks, stepping closer, eliminating the space I’d tried to put between us. Her eyes darken with something
that looks like interest—or maybe recognition of exactly what I meant.
Instead of taking you like the killer I am. Instead of leaving marks on your skin and shadows in your eyes. Instead of turning
you into something as twisted as me.
“Instead of doing what every instinct tells me to do,” I say finally. “You deserve better than what I am.”
“What if I don’t want better?” Her voice carries an edge that makes my blood heat even as it terrifies me. “What if I want
exactly what you’re afraid to give me?”
“Then you don’t understand what you’re asking for.” I force myself to step back, breaking the spell of her proximity. “You’re
twenty-three years old. You should be falling in love with some nice boy your own age who’ll take you dancing and treat you
like a princess. Not standing in a hallway asking a man old enough to be your father to—”
“To what?” she challenges. “To want me? To stop pretending you don’t?”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to find the strength to do what’s right. “You deserve someone who can love you the way
you should be loved. Soft and sweet and safe. I don’t know how to be any of those things.”
“Then I don’t need them.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it cuts through me like a blade. “I’d rather have what
you can actually give me than some fantasy about what I should want. I want your cock, Blue. Not flowers and sweet compliments.”
“Tomorrow,” I say, forcing myself to step back, to break contact before I lose the ability to think clearly. “Tomorrow is
going to be a very long day, and you’re going to need all your strength for what’s coming.”
“You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m afraid of what I’ll turn you into,” I admit. “In one night, I could destroy everything beautiful about you and twist it into something dark and hungry and broken.”
Something shifts in her expression—not hurt anymore, but understanding. She steps forward and places her palm flat against
my chest, over my heart.
“What if I’m already broken?” she asks quietly. “What if watching my father die already took away everything soft and sweet
and safe about me? What if the person you’re trying to protect is already gone?”
The words land hard, and I know she’s right on some level—I can see it in the way she smiled at Sly’s corpse, in how easily
she accepted the promise of more bodies to come.
“Then maybe we’re both already lost,” I say, covering her hand with mine.
For a long moment, we just stand there in the candlelit hallway, her palm pressed against my chest, my hand covering hers.
I can feel the warmth of her skin, the slight tremor in her fingers that betrays how affected she is despite her bold words.
She’s not backing down, not retreating from what she wants.
“You’re going to make me wait,” she says, and it’s not a question.
“I’m going to try to do the right thing,” I say, though we both know how flimsy that sounds.
Her eyes flash with something between frustration and amusement. “The right thing for who?”
I don’t have an answer for that, and she knows it. She rises up on her toes one more time, her lips brushing against my ear.
“When you’re lying in your bed tonight with your hand on your cock, thinking about what I offered,” she whispers, “remember
that I’m just down the hall. And I’d do it better than you can.” Her lips curve into a smile that’s pure temptation. “Goodnight,
Blue. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
She slips inside her room and closes the door with a soft click, leaving me standing in the hallway with my blood on fire
and my dick throbbing.
I press my palm flat against her door, fighting the urge to follow her inside and finish what she started.
My cock will be hard for hours from that kiss, from the way she looked at me like she wanted to devour me whole, from the invitation she offered and the way the girl says exactly what she wants.
I stay there for another minute, listening to the sounds of her moving around inside—the whisper of silk hitting the floor,
the soft pad of bare feet on stone. Every sound makes my blood burn hotter.
Tomorrow I’ll see her at breakfast and pretend I’m not thinking about backing her against the nearest wall. Pretend I’m not
already planning which Crow to hunt down next, how to capture them alive and deliver them to her like some twisted courtship
offering. Pretend I can’t still taste her on my lips or feel the phantom heat of her fingers trailing down my chest.
Tomorrow I’ll have to acknowledge that everything changed tonight—not just with the message we sent the Crow, but with how
badly I wanted to finish what we started in that dressing room. The line we crossed once. The line I’ll spend the rest of
my life wanting to cross again.
Just another taste like we had at the White Note.
One more lick . . .
Peter’s daughter!
One more kiss . . .
Peter’s daughter!
The way she . . .
Peter’s fucking daughter!
But that kiss she just gave me was a declaration of war against my self-control. And her invitation into her bedroom was a
promise that this battle is far from over.
She’s already winning.