Page 27 of Broomsticks and Bloodstains
Always, he left with me—whether we walked or drove.
“How was work?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. The crazy thing was, he actually seemed to care.
“Eh, same old, same old. Benito and Mike were arguing about baseball all night.”
He chuckled. I loved that sound.
It was crazy that this ruggedly handsome man—this dangerous man—had integrated himself into my little universe. He had taken the time to learn the timing of my world—when the kitchen closed, when the dishwasher rattled the floor, when Brody counted out the drawer.
Early on, he’d figured out which nights I walked home and which nights I took the bus. Then, he realized that after the alley, I no longer walked—unless he strolled along with me.
He walked me upstairs, casting a scowl at my downstairs neighbor’s door as we passed. Inside my apartment, he paused and pulled out his phone.
“Are you hungry? I could order something?” he offered.
“I’m good,” I assured him. “I’m not hungry for food.”
A rare grin tilted the corner of his mouth up, and he let me lead him to my tiny bathroom. His size made it seem smaller than it already was. We quickly showered so I could scrub the grime of the bar from my skin. Then we moved to the bed and got dirty again.
In bed, there was nothing careful left in either of us. He kissed me like he was doing his best to erase the night in that alley from my skin. I clung to him like I could anchor him to me—and safety.
He didn’t make love. He took me apart and rebuilt me, piece by piece, until I didn’t know where I ended and he began. All I knew was the tremble in my thighs and the breathless state in which he left me.
Sometimes he was rough, possessive, fingers practically leaving behind heated prints that turned into bruises by morning. Others, he was so gentle it made my chest ache and my eyes sting, as his mouth worshipped its way down my ribs like a prayer. Tonight was one of those desperate nights.
He marked me. I marked him back. Scratches along his neck and shoulders. A crescent bite at his collarbone that made him hiss and laugh in one breath, the sound low and shocked, like he’d forgotten he could make it.
Despite him insisting I was his, I told myself it was only sex—a need that my body had found a willing, dangerous answer for.
But there were moments like when I was making coffee while he stood behind me. The way he reached around to steal the mug, his chin hooked on my shoulder; or the way he automatically reached to tuck my hair behind my ear as he passed; the way he checked the windows and the chain on my door without comment—all the little things that cracked that blatant lie open.
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, this was more than bodies colliding with animalistic need.
Sometimes, he fell asleep with his hand splayed over my sternum, as if to feel proof that my heart was still beating. Other times, I woke to find him in the rickety chair in the corner of the room, elbows on his knees, eyes on me as if he could stand guard against the night itself.
“You don’t sleep,” I murmured once as I rubbed my eyes.
His mouth tilted. “I sleep enough.”
“For what?” I scoffed.
“To keep you satisfied,” he replied. Nothing else. The words should have been corny. They weren’t. They landed heavy and hot, a brand on my chest I clung to.
I’d never been anybody’s anything. Not like this. The realization scared me so much I got up and pulled him back to bed just to drown it out.
Chapter 17
Sofia
Fear didn’t leave; it settled in and took root.
In daylight, I could almost pretend. Groceries. Rent. A sink that coughed up nasty, brown water for a minute before remembering its job. But at night… that’s when the shadows stretched longer, and in them, I saw things I knew weren’t really there. Invisible monsters seemed to snarl from the shadows in the alley behind the bar when I took out the trash. Keeping my senses open for trouble, I would pretend nothing was wrong, but I always hurried inside as quickly as I could.
Lately, Maksim carried tension like other men carried wallets. It sat beneath his skin, a hum you could feel if you stood close. He scanned constantly. More than once, his knuckles were skinned when he took his seat at the bar. His ribs carried a yellowing bruise one morning he didn’t bother to explain.
Still, he tried to maintain a sense of normalcy in our relationship. It was Monday night, and it was my night off. Maksim had taken me to a Broadway show, and we’d stopped for drinks afterward. Well, I did. I swore Maksim wasted more money on vodka that he hardly drank more than a sip of each time.
We’d decided to stay at his apartment and take the subway to avoid fighting for parking.
