Page 48 of The Royal Street Witch
“Well… She has hurt me. She always chose men over me. Left me to fend for myself. It’s complicated.” I keep my eyes on the road, feeling his eyes on me.
“I get that. And it’s easy to let that hurt eat away at you. Allow it to make you fearful of love. Sometimes the people we love do things that hurt us that have nothing to do with us. My mother hurt me every time she allowed my father to beat me, but it was because she was the weak one.”
“She was,” I whisper because his words make sense. “I want to change. It’s not so easy.”
“I get it, I get it. It’s complex. I’m lucky Nicola took me in like she did. Gave me her last name and has been my mother longer than my birth mother was.”
“And you love her the same?”
He pulls his arm across the top of the seat and tilts his head in thought. “It’s different. Though I love Nicola very much. She gave me this after I was turned.” He points to the ring on his finger with his initials. “She told me I was a Delacroix and she would teach me and protect me. That I was her son for all eternity.”
“Then you’re lucky, you got a second chance.”
“Yeah,” he says and looks out the window, silencing befalling us for a few seconds. “That day in my kitchen, that’s when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to give up. I knew I had to have you. I’ll always thank Delta Wildes for teaching you how to dance.”
“Same.”
“I knew it!” he yells out, rolling his window down. The humid air fills the car as my hair whips my face.
“It’s not a rooftop, but it’s just us and the gators in the lake. Tell ’em you’re my girl.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” I keep my eyes on the road, my lip curling at how ridiculous he is.
“Do it. Here, I’ll go first.” And he pushes his head out the window and shouts as loudly as he can— “SHE’S MY GIRL!”
“Lord, you have lost it!” I yell, and he pulls his face next to mine, kissing my cheek, then whispering in my ear.
“Do it, please. Tell the gators you’re my girl.”
First I laugh, but soon my whole body tingles from his breath on my ear, his desire for me to say those words, words that aren’t allowed. I can’t be anyone’s girl, especially his. But that doesn’t change how I feel about it, and the feelings that I have for him can’t be denied or rationalized away. Desire, lust, friendship, but something more and it’s dangerous territory. His hand slips in between my thighs, pressing on my shorts with one finger.
“I’m your girl,” I say quietly, my face serious, my heart racing.
“A little louder. The gators can’t hear you.”
I scoff and look at him, and he rubs me and I shake my head, my proverbial white flag.
“I’m his girl.” My mouth is raised toward the open window.
“One more time, make it count.” His finger presses harder over the denim, the touch causing my leg to shake.
“Do you want us to crash?”
“You always keep us safe,” he says and kisses my neck. “Come on.” He looks at me, eyes twinkling, and I want to please him, to give him what he wants. I’ve never wanted to do that for a man before in my life. I want to tell the truth, so I do.
“I’M YOUR GIRL!” I shout out the window and he falls back to his seat, clapping his hands, saying YES way too many times.
“I knew it,” he smiles, his fangs out from excitement. “You’re my girl.”
And I am…for now.
BLINK THREE TIMES IF YOUwant to sneak into the bathroom to fuck.
I can’t help but smile at my phone, so I look up and take a deep breath, staring at my reflection in my shop mirror. Stop yourself, Aster. You’re going to drown. I pull the smile from my face and text him back.
Don’t do anything stupid.I slam my phone down and pack up the creams I’m dropping off at Nightwalkers, and it’s the first time I will see Cassius since Bastian told him about the potion. And yes, I’m anxious. Bastian trusts Cassius implicitly, but I’ve got no reason to trust him with my secret, and this is the part of our arrangement that I didn’t think through, the possibility that Cassius would say no.
Once inside Nightwalkers, Amerie quickly shoos me into Nicola’s office where business is usually done, you know, when young men aren’t bleeding out on a couch. I close the office door behind me, and the vampire is seated behind her outrageous oak desk, her blonde hair up in a tight bun with two tendrils coiled on each side of her face. Candles flicker on shelves behind her chair, making her skin glow the color of twilight. The old damask wallpaper peels from the walls, giving it an intentional creepy look, and in a satin chair the color of a ruby sits Cassius.
