Page 47 of Ruthless Consequences

It’s a rush that’s real and ours—like when blood surges through a vein. What a high it is for the heart.

“You ever going to try to lock me out, Lucila?”

I notice his use of “try,” but I ignore it because I’m too caught up in the question.

“No,” I say, understanding. “I’m not ever going to turn my back on you. I won’t leave.”

“But you might try to lock me out.”

“If I do, I’m sure I’ll have a damn good reason.”

“Then I’ll have a damn good reason to make things right. To fight for this.”

“You hold the key,” I say.

“You’re the lock.”

“Then we fit,” I say. “We’ll learn how to make this work.”

We’re making promises that feel like vows.

“I love you, Lucila,” he says.

“I love you too,” I say, moving my hands up his sides, wrapping my arms around his neck.

Those words, and the kiss I initiate, seal everything. As young as I am, I know I’m in this for the rest of my life with him. Whateverthisis between us.

Whatever it is, it’s mine. It’s mine in a way that nothing else has ever been.

Ava and I are so different. She’s wild, where I’m careful with each step. I hide so I can indulge in a simple chocolate bar. She’s probably out screwing gangsters and trying things that could only get her addicted. But we’re the same in this.

We both fight against the same hurt that highlights our differences—how we deal with it. We fight so we don’t fall hard enough to shatter what’s already been cracked. But tonight, when I fall, when I surrender, it will be to the safety of his iron heart. The heart that draws him to the darkness and to the light. The heart that’s hard enough to hide my fragile existence behind it. Hide the very thing he heard in my voice.

He’s a cold, hard shield against the world, but there’s warmth where he’s keeping me. In the sun. His darkness and my light keeping the feelings between us in shadow. They follow us wherever we go.

Our lips part, but our eyes hold. Then he leans down again, his lips more demanding this time. The kiss grows wilder. Uncontrolled. Our tongues tangle, and his breath is mine.

We lose ourselves to it.

My eyes refuse to open. They’re weighed down by what I’m not supposed to see but feel.

It’s all I am. Feelings. A body that’s been turned inside out and has never felt this side of the world before. But I’m completely cut off from everything but him.

I don’t even blink when my back hits the wall. We’ve moved from the center of the kitchen, each step measured by lips and hands, toward my room. He lifts me off my feet, but I shake my head, pointing down the hall. The last room. A room that doesn’t get used because everyone believes it’s haunted. It’s clean but filled with boxes. But I’d rather deal with left-behind memories than all those Fausti eyes on Ava’s wall staring at me.

The things Janis left behind are stored in there, but cold memories can’t touch me tonight. Not with fire in my blood, even if my skin feels cold. Anxious.

A bright moon paints the dark room silver. We’ve turned into those shadows.

He shuts the door, locking it behind him. He sets me down on the bed, then comes to stand between my legs. He says nothing, but I know what he’s silently asking me. My hand drifts underneath his shirt. His stomach is a hard mass of muscle beneath the softness of my palm. Touching him feels like caressing warm stone. Two deep indentions in a V shape are carved out, and I feel his skin contract as I unbutton his jeans.

Grabbing the back of his T-shirt, he pulls it over his head, messing up his hair, and throws it to the floor. The light breaks from behind him, but it only makes his features seem even darker. More dangerous. I lie back a bit on the bed, opening my legs some to give him room to finish undressing.

I’m still in this. With him. It’s my first time. He knows it. I told him I was a virgin. His response was, “I don’t have to kill anyone then.” From most people, it would be a joke. Not from him.

His boots come off next. His socks. His jeans. His boxers. Then he’s standing naked in front of me.

He’s gorgeous. So fucking gorgeous I can’t stop staring at him. I lick my lips, because his scent lingers in the air, and I crave to taste his skin. I crave to touch him. To wrap my hand around his dick and feel how hard it is. It seems as rock solid as his muscles. But it’s jutting out, like a huge weapon, and his balls seem swollen. I don’t think they are, though. He’s justbig—all over.

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