Page 103 of Sinful Desires
She giggled. “That’s not how it works.”
“Sure it is. You like it, I like it. That’s how I fucking work.”
She shifted, her leg curling tighter around mine. “So what, if I said pink, you’d suddenly become a fan of that too?”
I tilted my head. “If you moaned wearing it, I’d worship it, baby.”
She let out a breathy laugh and smacked my chest, soft but sharp. Then she shifted a little closer, her breath warm against my throat. “Okay?…?what’s your favorite city?”
I paused, my eyes drifting back to the window.
“Nice,” I said, voice low. “I grew up near there. The sky burns in purples and pinks over the sea every night, you’d love it. And you?”
She rested her chin on my chest, looking up at me. “I don’t have one.”
I looked down at her. “A city?”
“A place,” she corrected. Her voice was quieter now, fragile at the edges. “I’ve lived everywhere and nowhere. Hotels, houses, boarding schools?…?none of it felt like anything.”
My hand found the back of her neck.
“Nice sounds beautiful,” she whispered.
I didn’t tell her I hadn’t been back in years, or that it didn’t feel like home anymore either. Some things were better left buried. So I just nodded, holding her tighter.
“What’s your favorite flower?”
My mind wandered back. Yellow mimosa spilling through the garden, bees cutting through the summer air. My mother’s hands, always busy with clippers and twine, scattering bouquets around the house.
“Yellow mimosa. And yours is lavender, right?”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling. “How do you know? Are you a stalker?”
“I know because I listen, baby. And your mother told on you.”
I hadn’t needed her mother to tell me. I already fucking knew. Lavender was everywhere in her place. On her sheets. In the way her skin smelled when she passed too close.
But it was that painting that did it.
The one in her hallway. A naked girl with red hair, running through a lavender field, arms out, wild and unbothered. I’d seen it every time I’d gotten her home over the years, tossed over my shoulder or barely standing. My eyes had always landed on it.
She wasn’t running to escape. She was running to be chased. And fuck, I was always the one behind her in my head, close enough to touch her but never enough to catch.
“Ugh. Shereallydoesn’t understand the concept of mystery,” she groaned. “Anyway, do you know why lavender is my favorite flower, Théo?”
I dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Tell me,beauté.”
“Because,” she breathed, “they stand for patience and devotion. Their scent always finds you first, like it’s already decided you’re theirs. And when you finally see them, all violetand wild, you stop. You kneel. You don’t even think. You just give in. Because you know that kind of devotion will either ruin you?…?or save you.”
“That’s exactly what you are to me, Miss Harper.”
She breathed out against my skin, lips grazing my chest. Then her finger dragged slowly across the skull inked on my bicep.
“How many men have you killed?” she asked, her voice quiet, almost gentle.
My hand moved across her cheek again. “Too many.”
She held my gaze, unblinking. “How many did you show mercy?”
