Page 32 of Vicious Sentiments

Cape doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his eyes on me and hear a bone grinding in his jaw. I expect him to laugh, scoff, or accuse me of lying, but after a quiet moment, he looks away.

“You’re not a coward,” he says.

I whip my head back to him, a fight at my lips. Of course, I’m a coward, buried under so much pain and unable to make it stop. But he keeps talking.

“It makes you brave, choosing to continue living with that gnawing away at you. I’m just a selfish coward. I deserve to die but can’t face it.”

I frown, not understanding. Death has always been a face I look into for comfort, the idea that he fears it confuses me.

“You can face her,” I say. I don’t mean to encourage him, but I feel like he needs to know he’s not a coward, that he just doesn’t understand, that Death is nothing to fear.

“Her?”

“Death,” I clarify, embarrassed that I let that slip.

He laughs. “Of course death is a woman.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Just that would be a cherry on the top of a karmic sundae.”

“No,” I say fervently. “Death isn’t vengeful.” I turn my body towards him, desperate for him to understand. “She doesn’t care about karma or what you’ve done. She welcomes everyone, offering peace, a home where pain and suffering don’t exist.”

He slowly turns his head toward me. “If that’s the case, then I don’t think I deserve death.”

I cock my head at him. “Everyone deserves Death.” The words aremorbid but only if you don’t understand. Everyone deserves to finally have the pain stop, for the memories to vanish, the struggle to cease.

He looks me over, studying my face and I think he’s starting to understand.

“You’re a little fucked up in the head, aren’t you?” he finally says.

I rear back and turn to the ocean. I think I’m less fucked up in the head than most people. At least, I don’t add to anyone’s tally of living struggles. Kyle was fucked up in the head—my dad, my teacher, and every man I’ve encountered besides Julian.

“Don’t take offense. So is Julian, and Dillon, and probably Marney most of all,” he says.

“What?”

“You think it’s normal to bring home a seventeen-year-old girl and claim her as yours? And you think Dillon running for three hours every morning is normal? And Marney was born into this, she doesn’t even know what normal is.”

“But you’re normal?”

He barks a laugh and his eyes darken. “No, I’m the most fucked up of them all.”

“How?” I ask with a shaky voice, scared of what he might reveal.

“I wouldn’t wait till you are eighteen to fuck you.” He leans in. “But I’d go slow, no clawing my way in, you’d blossom for me, beg for it.”

This is the part where I’m supposed to slap him or run, but in true form I sit there, my mouth making a little ‘o’, caught like a deer in headlights as he continues.

“Have you ever even orgasmed?” He tilts his head. “Do you want to know what it’s supposed to feel like? I could give you a taste right now. Or should I say, I could take a taste. Run the tip of my tongue over that little bud of yours.”

His face is so close to mine that I can imagine what the stubble on his face would feel like. I can feel the heat of his tongue as he licks hislip, make out the small dimple in his cheek as he stares down at me.

If I don’t move, he’s going to kiss me. But my brain isn’t working, no alarms are going off. Nothing is yelling at me to protect myself. The only thing I can feel is a throbbing, an ache, a dizzying sense of yearning. Do I want this?

Part of me knows that Julian isn’t going to touch me, not yet at least, and I appreciate that, but Cape is offering something I’ve never had. Something I’ve always wondered about.

“I won’t even ask for anything in return,” his husky breath floods my senses. “I’ll just give. I won’t take. You want that?” He pauses, waiting for an answer but I can’t find my tongue. “You have to give me consent, baby. Say the word and I’ll drown myself in your pussy.”

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