Page 99 of Born for Lace

“You?” Lagos snaps those eyes up to Tomar, set ablaze with anger.

“No,” Tomar deflects quickly. “That’s not… That’s not?—"

“It'll never be you!”

I hear Tomar swallow. “I didn't?—"

“Don't fucking lie!” Lagos roars, his palms still on my cheeks vibrating with restraint and burning my skin with rage. “At least I don’t hide my depravities. You're just like everyone else. You want to sink inside her, and?—

“Don't, Lagos,” Tomar warns.

“Tell her what you want to do to her,” Lagos hisses. “What you dream about doing to her sweet, young body. Tell her what you do with her knickers at night. Do they smell like her pussy?”

“Stop,” I whisper, feeling choked, but Lagos can’t hear me over the craze rushing between his ears, the thump of his pulse is a tangible threat in the air. “If I didn’t owe you my life, I would have ripped out your guts the moment you looked at her like?—”

“I am a fucking animal!” Tomar barks, defeated. “Dammit! But I am trying to be better.”

I sniffle. “Lagos...”

His eyes, tunnels of relentless grey fury, drop to my face. They soften in an instant as he says, “Little flower?”

I’m so confused. “I don't want to be here.” I shake my head through hiccups, feeling the walls press in and the room shrink. “Let me go back to my room.”

“My room.”

A cloud of confusion sits around me as I walk to the room. I hear Lagos say something to Tomar, and then he is behind me, shutting the door.

Feeling like I may collapse, I lay Spero on the blankets and place my hand on the wall, steadying myself.

I’m hungry. Dizzy.

Clues crumble my composure. The blood on Lagos’ fingers that day at the waterfall. Words from the girl at the roadhouse.“—fucked, and his cum is leaking from between your thighs. Do you feel pure and wholesome then?"I was never sore the next first-light.

Why?

No. Please, no.

“He never touched me…there?Why?” I murmur to myself. A tear rushes a cool path down my cheek. “I never soothed him. I never relieved him.”

“Good.”

I turn my muddied ire to Lagos. “You knew! You have known since the waterfall. What have I been doing for the past five years? Why didn’t he…wantme?”

“Perhaps he was a good man. Perhaps he wanted a daughter. Not a fuck thing.”

“A daughter?” I swallow but feel like I am choking on jagged rocks. “My Trade is a health-care initiative. I know you have no respect for it, but I grew up believing in it, Lagos. I truly believed in the good we were doing.”

He stands completely naked before me, long, thick, and muscular—every inch of him. And his dick, half-hard, I’ve never seen it another way.

“I don’t know what he was thinking,” he says, his voice otherworldly deep. “But I am certain that you did your duty to that man.”

Duty…

No.My lower lip bunches and wobbles as I try not to sob. “I didn’t. It was my Meaningful Purpose.”

He is in front of me, his hand sliding between my hair and neck, gripping the nape. “To accompany, relieve, and soothe? Correct?” His thumb slides under my jaw, pushing my chin up. My eyes meet his, and I try to blink the tears away. “Yourpresenceis soothing; your silly awe is a great relief in this fucking dire land. I’m certain you meant everything to that man.”

The vision of Lagos clears as I continue to bat the tears away. Gazing up at him, I feel weak with confusion.

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