Page 82 of Little Deaths

“I could ask you the same question,” he said. “You’re the one who asked me down here. I’ve seen what you’re like when your back’s against the wall. You get vicious.”

Vicious. That metallic blood-taste flooded her throat, gagging her the way the wine did. “What are you saying? You think I’m doing this to myself?”

He knows something.

The thought arrowed through her, sharp and venomous.

“Where were you today?” she asked abruptly.

“Meeting with my father’s lawyer.”

“Why?” She felt the tension in his body. It alarmed her even more, taking her back to that panicked state. She slammed her hand against his chest. “Why? Answer me. Where did you go last night? Where have you been all day? What are you hiding from me?”

“So,” he said, his voice low. “You’re the only one allowed to have secrets?”

“Fuck you,” she said. “It’s not the same. I worked for a bastard who swore he’d ruin my career before he let me make myself over in someone else’s image, and then I married a man who apparently thought the same. What kinds of secrets would someone likeyouhave to hide?”

“I can think of one off the top of my head and she’s underneath me.”

That made her struggle upright. She felt the neck of her sleep shirt slide down her shoulder. When she reached out to steady herself, her hand closed on his thigh. They both froze and she felt his fingers bite into her skin the way his teeth had bitten into her throat, and the skin beneath her ear immediately erupted into anticipatory pins and needles.

“Why don’t you do what everyone in Hollywood does and write a tell-all memoir about how your parents fucked up your life?”

“Because Ilikethe way you’ve gotten into me.” He gathered her hair to one side, causing a ripple of sensation along her neck and scalp. “It feels good when you fuck me up.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, then,” she said. “That’s just sick.”

“But you like it that way. Didn’t you?” The ice in his voice couldn’t quite conceal the emotion that swirled beneath it in dark, eddying waves. “But you forced my father to choose between us and he didn’t like that, but he did it—for you. And I can’t even hold it against him, because I’d have done the same. I would have chosen you, too.”

His fingers jerked, pulling her head back. Her nipples tightened.

“But then he dropped you. Like you were fucking nothing. Leaving you all alone.”

“And you want his leftovers?” she sneered. “What does that say about you?”

“It says that I know your value,” he snarled back. “It says I’m not a fucking moron who’s going to let you slip through my fingers. If you were mine, I’d have kept you. Forever. I’d have fought for you. I tried to. You wouldn’t let me.”

“Because you were achild.”

She pushed at him again; he barely moved.

“I’m not a child anymore,” he said in a low voice.

“You talk about me like I’m a pawn in some noble war,” she said, her voice raw. “But that’s not what this is. It’s filthy and wrong, what you did to me. Was what you got out of it even worth it? Was it worth ruining my marriage? Is it worth ruining your life?”

“Yes, because he didn’tdeserveyou.” The words came out as a feral grow that seemed to come from the back of his throat, so low and savage that it scared her. When his hand wrapped around her neck, it was like being cracked open, and all that white light inside her poured out in melting waves of electric want. “I used to watch you in the kitchen, pacing around with a wineglass in hand. I saw the fucking night-swimming. You weren’t happy, either. Whatever you got out of this—whatever he fucking promised you—he didn’t deliver.” She could see the whites of his eyes, like pale moons in the dark. “When I fucked you, it was like watching a desert come alive after that first heavy rain. You took it all, and still—you wanted more. And I would have given it to you,” he concluded heatedly. “Until you bled me dry. Because I loved you.”

Her body jerked, once. And when she drew in breath to speak, she felt his stubbled mouth part over hers in the dark, shaped by his desperation. His hand slid down her arm, spreading to stroke her body through the shirt. “No,” she mumbled, trembling, as his thumb flicked her nipple through the cotton. The taste of wine had turned sour on her tongue. “Don’t say that.”

Every brush was like acid, peeling away layers and layers of skin, until need became pain, and pain became agony, and the cautious way he was touching her now hurt more than force.

She let out a rough cry and bucked beneath him, her breathing picking up when she felt the catch of his teeth. The weight of him was suffocating, sharply contoured. When her body lifted involuntarily, he was all hard edges. “What are you doing?” he said, holding her down again. “You told me you didn’t like to be fucked that way in your bed.”

Yes, she had said that, hadn’t she? Mostly to hurt him, but partly out of a desperate need for control. “I changed my mind,” she said. “Be rough. Fuck me hard.”

When he shoved her back against the bed, she felt a flare of excitement. This was better, yes. In the darkness, he could be anyone. Not her stepson, but the faceless lover of her darkest fantasies. Maybe he felt the same, because he shifted his weight, making it hard to breathe. And then he was working his way inside her with aching slowness. She dug her nails into his back when he lifted her legs, squeezing his ribs between her thighs as he fucked her into a frenzy.

Yes, she thought.Oh, God, yes.

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