Page 41 of Dukes of Peril

I don’t want to push too hard here, or say the wrong thing. He’s like when Archie first came here, skittish and easily startled. I’m glad he’s getting help, but with Remy? It’s hard to trust anything. To trust him.

I feel his eyes tracking me tenaciously, and every move he makes seems intentionally measured to take as long as possible. He threads his second arm through carefully, even though it’s not even injured. I hold my frame, patient and just as deliberate with my movements, mechanically pulling the sides of the shirt to his front.

I’m his Duchess.

This is a duty.

I begin with the lower buttons, pretending I don’t hear the slow, growing heaviness of his breath. One after the other, I ascend, hooking button into buttonhole, until my knuckles accidentally graze the hard ladder of his abdomen. Remy sucks in a soft breath, abs flexing.

“Almost there,” I say, as if his reaction could be owed to impatience and nothing more.

He responds by bending his head, the tip of his nose grazing along the hair at my temple. “Your color’s fading,” he whispers, voice like tattered silk. “In your hair. The blue’s so pale now. I could re-do it sometime.” My jaw clenches, fingers hastening as he inhales. It could just be that he’s tired and slumping. He’s not even really touching me. Just his breath.

And it’s agony.

“There,” I say, finishing the third button from the top, just how I know he likes it.

I’m stiffly straightening the collar when his nose trails lower, nudging against my temple, and at that same moment, his hand–the one attached to theinjuredshoulder–reaches up to catch my jaw, lips dragging damply across my cheek.

I jolt back, tearing myself from his grip. All the heat in my blood turns to chill. “Don’t.” My voice is sharp enough that he flinches, hand still suspended in the air. “Donotfucking manipulate me the way you accused me of doing to you.” I throw him the sling, watching as he fumbles, the color bleeding from his face.

“I wasn’t–” The defense is weak even before it clips off. From the slack set of his jaw, he knows he’d be lying. Remy looks down at the sling, fingers twisting in the material. “So this is how it’s gonna be? I can’t even kiss you anymore?”

It takes me a long moment to regain that robotic sense of impassivity. When I do, I ask, “Can you do that yourself?”

There’s a long pause where we just stare at one another, an understanding slotting into place.

No, he can’t kiss me anymore.

Not like that.

Mouth pressed into a grim line, he puts his arm through the sling, fingers tugging it snugly around his elbow. He replies without looking at me, eyes fixed to the clock mechanics looming in the background. “Can you fasten it? Please.”

The request is quiet and uncomfortably hollow, and when I step forward to grant it, he doesn’t even tip his head in my direction, standing stiffly as I loop the strap over his neck, pressing the velcro down.

“Thanks,” he says, turning to leave.

I listen to his retreat, feet trodding away, before I call out, “Remy.” Turning, I catch his frozen form, his sharp features cutting a dramatic silhouette in the doorway. “I’m glad you’re taking your meds. Just because we’re…” I stumble over a word I can’t find, because I’m not sure one exists. When have I ever been able to label what Remy and I are to each other, and how would I even begin to find its opposite? I don’t try. I glance at the clock mechanics, staring sightlessly at this engine with no spark. “Whatever’s happening between us, that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be okay. I’ll always want you to be okay.” I meet his gaze. “Don’t ever use that against me.”

He steps forward half a step. “I just wanted…” But then he stops, sagging, and turns back to the door. “I justwanted. Sorry, Vinny.”

I think about it long after he’s gone, sweaty and sore, leaning into the crank with all the force in my body as I strain to budge it. My feet slip against the floor, but I plant them harder, shoving, willing the universe to give me this–just this. Even when I know it won’t work, I still wrestle with it, throwing everything I have into turning it.

When I leave an hour later, the room is just as silent and still as when I entered.

It doesn’t actually hitme until I’m stepping out of the shower, eyes falling on the various items surrounding the sink. There’s hair gel, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, aftershave–all a manner of male grooming products.

And Remy’s pills.

“They’re still orange…”

The first thing I do after dressing for bed is go up to my loft, fishing out Sy’s journal from beneath the mattress. Whether an intentional gesture or a lapse of memory, he hasn’t asked for it back. It’s been days since I flipped it open to see the apology he left me in the back, and I don’t bother now.

He’s hunched over the laptop when I knock on his door frame, buds firmly planted in both ears. Archie is sprawled out in front of Sy’s pillow, twisted inexplicably and fast asleep, his little paws twitching intermittently. He sleeps here most nights now, usually coming up to the loft to lay with me in the smaller hours of morning.

When Sy doesn’t react, I realize he can’t hear me, so I invite myself in.

His head shoots up when I wave my hand in front of him, fingers plucking out both ear buds. “Hey.Shit.” He rubs his eyes, leaning back in his seat. There’s a sandwich on the desk beside his computer with only two bites taken from it. I know for a fact he made it five hours ago. “I’m so close to being done with this paper,” he says, voice rusty.

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