"Changed you?"
He sits on the edge of the bed, his hand tight in mine. "I'm not the boy from the dark, Jane. The dark's inside me now. The things she did. The things I do now."
"You started to like it," I say. I'm not horrified. I'm not shocked. I'm just numb.
"Like? I don't know. But I started to need it."
He rakes the fingers of his free hand through his hair. "When I told you I was broken, I meant it. I'm fucked up, baby. I do fucked-up things. And I never wanted to taint you with that."
I shake my head. "Don't do that. Don't make it sound like I'm something you're going to get dirty. Don't put me on a pedestal, Dallas."
"I'm not. But I also don't want to take you down with me."
"You mean kink, right?" I don't tell him I know that he goes to The Cellar. That's not a confidence I can break.
"That's a nice, polite term for it," he says, and a little frisson of excitement cuts through me.
"But maybe you need it," I suggest. "Maybe you need the dark--the kink. Maybe it excites you. Maybe it gets you hard." I squeeze his hand. "Maybe you need it to stay hard."
He lifts our joined hands and brushes my knuckles over his lips. "That's what I'm afraid of. Christ, I don't want to have this conversation."
I lick my lips. "What if I want it? Not the conversation," I clarify, "but, well, what you do. Maybe I want to do it, too."
He looks at me silently for a moment, and there's an edge to his voice when he finally asks, "What are you saying?"
"Just that I'll go there with you. You won't taint me, Dallas. I want to. Whatever you need, I want to give it to you."
His smile is sweet but a little sad. "I don't think you understand what you're offering."
"Tonight was a little kinky," I point out. "And it qualifies as one of the hottest nights of my life."
"We played tonight, baby. That's not the dark I'm talking about." He brushes a strand of hair off my face as he looks into my eyes. "I don't want sex with you to conjure ghosts. I don't want what she did in my head when I'm with you."
I shudder, just the mention of the Woman giving me chills. She knew what Dallas and I were to each other almost from the beginning. I didn't realize it at first, and I never told Dallas. I was afraid if he knew we were being watched, then he would stop coming to me. Stop making love to me. And I needed it.
Even when the Woman would bring a whispered comment along with my food--"You little slut, you're a whore, you're cursed, you incestuous little bitch"--I said nothing to Dallas. But the Woman only spoke to me. Just words. Hurtful, yes, but not physically.
But god only knows what else she did when she had Dallas alone.
"You can talk about it with me, you know. Whenever you need to."
The corner of his mouth rises in an ironic smile. "I thought I just did."
"I mean about the rest."
I see the haunted look in his eyes and know that he may never say a word to me.
"You don't have to," I assure him. "But I want you, Dallas--and I will take you however I can get you. Even so--and I'll only say this once--I admit I want to feel you inside of me again. And I know you want it, too. So if going into the dark together is what you need, then I will. I'll go in with you."
I take a breath, because I've been talking too fast and the words are spilling out on top of each other. "You need to be in control, and I need to let go. And if this is what we need to do for us to be together, then I will stay in the dark with you."
"Together," he repeats. He doesn't have to explain what he means. The truth is that we both know that for us together is a hell of a lot more complicated than working through sex. Together means secrets. Complications. Lies and misdirection.
And I will do all that and more if it means I can have Dallas. I will do anything. Everything.
I squeeze his hand and meet his eyes. "Together," I confirm. "I'm not scared, Dallas. I'll go in the dark with you. I'll go anywhere with you. And I'll stay for as long as we need."
He looks at me, and for a second I think I see hope, even excitement, before it fades away.