Page 226 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“Yes. I—”
“Did you know, if I wanted to, I could look at every fucking text you send?” I try not to see it in my head. What she might have texted him and deleted. What they talk about, without me. It occurs to me then this is only a fraction of what Lucifer felt, and I suddenly feel for him all over again.
Her hand comes to the counter as she steadies herself, but I still can’t look her in the eye. She doesn’t fucking speak.
“And do you know how fuckinghurtI would be if I knew you were fucking with one of my brothers behind my back? What did I walk in on earlier, huh? Would you have let him have you if I didn’t make it happen? How often do you two text each other?”
Another second of silence. Then she explodes. “I. Am not.Fucking.Texting him!” She screams the words and I actually flinch. “I’m not fuckingcallinghim, like you do with Sid!” I snap my head up then, and we both take a step toward each other, like we’re opposite fucking ends of a magnet. She cannot be serious. “I’m not talking to them every fucking day like you do with her, and she comes over with her baby,yourbaby—”
I slam my fist on the counter, leaning in toward her. I know my thoughts are muddled because I drank too much and smoked too much but I don’t care. I wanna fucking fight.“Mybaby?” I can barely control the tremor in my voice.“My fucking baby?”
She doesn’t back down, standing on her tiptoes instead to get closer to my fucking level. “He could be yours,” she says, her voice strong.“You fucked her, you said it yourself.”
I flex my jaw, narrowing my eyes. “You don’t fucking get it, do you?”
“Getwhat?”she spits back, even her ears are going red, she’s so fucking mad. So. Fucking. Delusional.
“You don’t get whatfamilyfuckingmeansto me, Ella. That’s what. You. Don’t.Get it.”
She looks like I hit her, blinking and pulling back, her lips pressed together like she’s trying not to cry. “I do get it. I know you love her and—”
“This isn’t about her.”
“And I know you two have some sick bond that I don’t understand, and I don’t get and maybe I never will—”
“This isnotabout her, Ella.” How can she not fucking see that?
“And you two share something we won’t ever share, and I know you don’t regret fucking her because you did it again right in front of myfucking face—”
“And youliked it.”I reach for her, fisting the collar of her hoodie as I yank her easily toward me, my forehead hitting hers. She darts her hands out, grabbing onto my biceps. “You hate it, becauseyou fucking liked watching it, didn’t you?I saw you, Ella. The entire fucking time Sid was on her back and she was becomingone of us,I watchedyou.” Her breath is on my lips, and it’s sickly sweet, despite the blood marring her skin.
She digs her nails into my skin. “So, it was easy for you? Watching me swallow down Lucifer’s cum because hey, at least I was doing itwith you?It waseasy?It was easy tonight too, wasn’t it? It was easy for you to walk away after you and Atlas both used me? Just like with Lucifer, so fucking simple for you, huh? Soeasy.”
“Seemed pretty fuckingeasyfor you.”
I think she’s broken my skin, the way her nails dig in even deeper. “I never said it was easy. It was hard to watch you let him suck you off. The entirethingwas hard, and weird, and…” She lets her eyes flutter closed, only for one second, and in that second, I realize I never once thought about how it felt for her to watch Lucifer with me, like that. “I was scared,” she finally continues, looking me dead in the eye. “I wanted to do whatever you wanted me to do. I wanted to…” Her voice breaks, but she doesn’t look away. “To make you happy. To prove I could handle it. Handleyou.Because you chose me, and I wanted to make sure I was…worthy.”
I think about that moment, after Noctem. I never told her I was jealous. I never told her not only did I feel overprotective, not only did I not let Lucifer be fucking rough, it kinda tore me a part a little. But I just… I was coming down from a fucking trip and my brother was falling apart and I… I didn’t know what else to do. It doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of fucking sense from the outside, I guess, but when you’re raised like I was, it seems perfectly fucking logical.Sex heals.Sid said that to me once. At first, it seemed like a bunch of fucking bullshit. Her way of justifying being a whore. But maybe she was right.
I guess the opposite could be true too.Sex can fuck you up.And tonight, when I wasn’t watching Atlas fuck her to save anything at all, when I was just doing it because…because I don’t even know anymore… I think I fucked us all up. And yeah, she was alone with him, but I had sent her away, didn’t I? In front of Sid, I belittled her.
I messed up.
I lock eyes with Ella, both of us breathing hard. I don’t let go of her hoodie, bunched in my fist.
I cup the back of her neck with my other hand, my thumb on the side of her throat. And I try to tell her the truth in the only way I can. “If you ever so much as look at Lucifer the wrong way, I’d probably gut him, Ella. If you ever fucked with someone behind my back, I’d kill them.”
Her mouth drops open.
I run my thumb up and down her neck and she shivers.
“It wasn’t easy. I was fucked up.Hewas fucked up. It wasn’t easy watching him hurt, either. But you…you were so fucking beautiful.”
She doesn’t say anything at all. Like she’s… fucking stunned.
“I know you did thatfor me.It wasn’t fucking easy, Ella.” I tilt my head, my lips brushing hers, the copper tang of Lucifer’s blood blooming on my mouth. “Being withyouisn’t easy for me.”
I see her throat roll as she swallows.
