Page 37 of PortCity Killers

I only felt a tiny tinge of guilt as he continued, “I forget these things. We don't speak about it often, but if it makes you feel better: Valentina and I are orphaned. We are family, just not in the same way you and your brother are. As for the blood...”

“I'm scared.”

I don’t know what made me say it-what made me speak the words out loud like that- but I didn’t like the idea of lying to Don, no matter how scary he and his sister were, not now.

Not after he’d cum inside my mouth, his orgasm driven by the woman everyone thought was his sister.

I felt too raw–too intimate with the knowledge I had.

“Of the blood?”

“No.”

“Then of what?”

“Of how much I liked it. I didn’t want to.”

He nodded, giving me a smile so soft I thought I would break apart. "Next time we will try it with our own blood, hmm? Perhaps that will help.”

“Next time?”

Did I want a next time? A next time what? Killing? Fucking?

“If you want,” Don brushed his thumb against my cheek, against the tear that escaped from the stress crashing down on me. “I won't force myself on you. I lost myself. If you truly didn’t want me then I would never touch you again.

“Next time,” I nodded.

“I can give you pleasure, Alex, but when I'm inside you again it will be because you trust me enough to know that I would take care of you.”

“Don-”

He smiled, shaking his head, “Valentina may not mind, but this is very important to me. When you come to my bed, I want to know you. I want to have every little wicked thought. I do not take lovers often. Certainly, I have never taken one with Valentina, not like this.”

He pressed his forehead to mine. My heart hurt with how intimate the gesture was.

“If you will have me?”

I lifted my hands to his stubbled cheek, stroking my fingers down the surprisingly soft hairs. My lips twisting in a smirk, “I think maybe without the whole, ‘gonna kill your brother’ thing.”

His laugh was loud–so loud I jumped back from the sound. Don was a strange one. So quiet and closed off until he boomed with laughter like this, like he couldn’t hold it in any more or he would have burst from the seams.

When he opened his eyes again, they danced brilliantly, vibrant in the harsh bathroom lighting, and I thought I might understand why he was so quiet around Valentina.

If people saw him like this, saw them both like this, so free and charming, they might forget the man who stood by watching me kill a betrayer.

They might forget the woman who pushed his dying body into mine as she clasped the back of my neck and pulled me into a gruesome kiss. Not me though. I wasn’t stupid enough to forget it, and my body certainly didn’t seem to want to let go of it either.

Don rose to his feet, glancing at me in his assessing way, but the amusement still hadn’t left.

He held his hands to me.

I took them, letting him pull me up to stand. I caught one last look in the mirror. Bryce’s jacket swamped me down to my thighs, the thick arms of his hanging well past my finger-tips.

There was no more blood on any visible surfaces aside from my dress, but even that just looked like amacabre design. I closed the jacket further around me, breathing in the fading scent of daddy that made everything a little more bearable.

The heavy weight of it, and of my phone in the right-hand pocket kept my legs from shaking as we descended the stairs.

Valentina was nowhere to be found. I didn’t look around for her, and Don didn’t seem to be waiting on her either as he opened the office door. His outstretched hand had me nearly sprinting out the door.

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