Page 22 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

It’s a special kind of torture being this close and not touching her. If there was a way to go back and take back every touch, every kiss, every cut, I would do it. Because now, it’s all that lives in my brain when she’s around.

“Should I return that favor?” I arch an eyebrow, smirking.

A cat must have her tongue because she keeps her mouth closed as I walk to her coffee machine, needing to move before she does something stupid like touch me and I do something reckless like let her.

The lingering smell of a freshly brewed pot soothes the tiredness in my bones. I open the cabinet above me, rolling my eyes at the litter of mismatched coffee mugs. FromHex the PatricharytoPoe Me Another Cup,they range in color and size.

I pick a solid white one, pouring the brown liquid inside and moving towards the fridge. I expect to be putting milk inside, but when I open the refrigerator, I find the coffee creamer I’ve been using for years nestled on the top shelf.

“You watched me drink my morning coffee?” I ask, grabbing the creamer before looking at her.

She swings her legs over the edge of the island, shrugging. “It’s a common brand.”

“Sure it is.” I run my tongue across the front of my teeth. “I’m curious, how much do you know about me, pet?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re a stalker. My stalker. I think I’m allowed to ask what boundaries you’ve crossed for the sake of following me.” I place the coffee cup in front of me, leaning my forearms on the island several inches away from her.

This is the most we’ve talked since I’ve been here. Well, she’s talked—I’ve stayed silent and done my best to avoid her. Because somehow, I always know how conversations end with us.

Her face is a light pink as she softly fiddles with the hem of her Hollow Heights sweatshirt before she speaks again. “I wasn’t doing it in a creepy way or for some sick gratification that they show on the news.”

“No, you did it for love, right?” My voice is harsh, pushing her towards the answer I want. “That’s what every stalker says when they get caught. It was all for love.”

Fire burns in her gaze, the switch flipping inside of her. “You were there on the most traumatic night of my life. The last good thing in a room filled with so much bad. You were there, and I clung to you.”

No one has ever called me good before.

Not a single person. Not even as a child.

“I didn’t even know what love was then. But I was alone. I had no one else except the memory of a boy who saved my life, a boy who had chosen kindness, and it was all I had. All I had inside foster care and group homes.” Her voice cracks a little, and she chews the inside of her cheek. “You were all I had.”

A tear rolls down her porcelain face, followed by another.

I despise myself for the way I’ve broken my vow of silence and for the way I’m about to break another rule. The word “control” seems to hold no weight when I’m around Little Miss Death.

A piece of me that’s stronger than the rest demands to fix what I’d just done, to comfort her in some way. I have no choice but to be pulled towards her.

She was a broken girl who grew up alone, disappeared within the cracks of the earth, and existed in the void. I wonder what she could have been without the trauma, with her mother still alive.

She’d lived through so much pain that I had been her only place of comfort.

Me.

I step in front of her small body, her legs spreading to make room for my waist between them. Chill bumps scatter up her thighs as she touches my cold skin. She lets out a gasp as my hands slide across her cheeks, holding her face.

My thumb catches a few of the new tears, sliding them away with gentle strokes.

Do you know what it’s like to go your entire life and never know gentle? How to be kind? Then you meet someone who is overflowing with it, and suddenly, you can’t be anything but soft just for them?

Touching Lyra is the same as stroking ivory keys.

Everything stops spinning, and my mind goes wholly still. There within the black-and-white of her soul exists a solace. My fingers beg to hear the music she’d make for me.

It’s simply her and the piano.

They know my secrets, the things the rest of the world will never.

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