Page 88 of A Debt So Ruthless

When I don’t reply, she says, “You broke his nose.”

“He needed it broken. His face was too symmetrical. Now it’ll have some character,” I mutter as the gate slides open.

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I just thought… I just wondered, because you were watching me, if you knew. Somehow. If… Never mind.”

My fingers tighten involuntarily on the wheel as we pull up the drive to the house. She takes off her seatbelt.

“If I knew what?” I put the car in park and grab Deirdre’s wrist, holding her in place so she can’t run from my questions. She avoids my gaze while I drill mine into her. “What happened?” I pull her closer and cup her face with my other hand, running my thumb back and forth across her flushed, freckled cheek.

“It’s nothing. We broke up, OK?”

“I know that.”

She knows I’ve been watching her. She knows that I know she stopped seeing him weeks ago.

“But why?” I press. “Other than the fact that he’s a snivelling, snot-nosed prat who isn’t fit to lick your fucking boots. What happened?”

She’s doing that thing where she rolls her lips inward between her teeth. She’s shutting down. Shutting me out.

“Deirdre,” I growl. “If you don’t talk, I’ll have to go track him down and make him talk. And a lot more will be broken than his nose.”

“Nothing happened,” she cries suddenly, a burst of sound. She says it so firmly, almost fervently, that it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself as well as me. “He just… He wanted to, but I didn’t want to. He tried to, but… Nothing happened. I got away. I got out of his apartment and ghosted him after that.”

I’ve taken quite a few hits to the head in my time, but I’m able to piece together what she says just fucking fine.

That pulsing tick is back in my brain, but this time it sounds like Brian’s voice saying Red Red Red Red Red Red over and over again. It’s all I hear. All I see. The car, the streets, the whole city red with the blood of the man I am about to obliterate.

Maybe my eyes have gone completely red even from the outside. Deirdre must see something change in me, because she puts her smooth, cool hands on either side of my jaw. It’s the first time she’s ever touched me like this. It’s both soothing and infuriating, because that one tender, possessive touch makes me want to get down in the slush and the salt and the snow, press my forehead to the ground, and bow. Her hands on my face, on my skin and my scars, solid and unflinching like this, makes me want to fucking beg. Beg her for something but I don’t know what. It’s both nostalgic and foreign to me, because I haven’t begged anyone for anything in decades. Not since I begged God that night in the fire.

“Elio,” she says, just a whisper.

And then, for the first time, she kisses me.

It’s timid at first. Tentative. Like she’s afraid she might be breaking a rule of some kind but she’s going to do it anyway. Her lips are so fucking soft, fluttering over mine in timid, exploratory pecks. Last time we kissed, it was all me. I grabbed her and I did it and she stood there and took it like a good fucking girl.

But this time, it’s her. She is coming to me. Before I know it, my eyes are closed. Other than my dick swelling, I don’t move a goddamn muscle. I don’t want to shatter the spell. I don’t want to forget how good it feels to have her hands on my face and her mouth on mine because she’s the one who chose to put them there. And maybe it’s pure manipulation on her part. Just meant to distract me. But I decide that I don’t care. Because right now, I’d crawl over broken glass for her. Walk shoeless through snow and ice for her.

Run back into a burning house for her.

And that kind of devotion is terrible. Terrifying. I haven’t prayed at the altar of anything besides death and wrath and money for a long, long time. I want to stay the man I’ve been for twenty years. The kind of man who doesn’t let himself feel anything besides anger and greed and desire.

The kind of man who’d steal a songbird simply because he decided that he wanted her. So that he could trap her, bind her, own her.

Not so that he could fucking love her.

When Deirdre’s tongue touches my lips, I can’t stay still anymore. With a muted groan, I grab her ass and haul her into my lap. Remembering what I did to her ass this morning, the way my come is on her skin right now, makes my cock leap under my jeans. Deirdre gasps against my mouth when she feels that hardening movement against her crotch.

I grind myself up against her, left arm locked around her back while my shoulder pounds, right hand cradling the back of her skull so she can’t back up, can’t lean away, can’t escape. My tongue shoves inside her mouth.

Fuck, kissing her is incredible. It’s like an accelerant and an antidote all at once. I’m devouring her, taking everything I can, tasting everywhere.

When she pulls back and whispers, “Don’t kill him,” all I can do is say, “I won’t.”

I don’t add the next part. She doesn’t need to know.

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