“You know, those things will kill you.”
A puff of smoke trailed into the night, the light at the end of the cigarette flared as the smoker took one last drag, in defiance, before he crushed it under his boot.
I knew he was grinning before he turned.
“You know that I’m too in love with you to ever do something fucking stupid like die before I get forever,” a husky voice said. It floated into the air like the smoke had, but curled around me and droned out the thumping bass of whatever song Sophie had decided to play over and over again tonight.
He snatched my hips and yanked me flush with his body with enough force to spill the wine that had turned flat and totally unappetizing. Plus, I’d already had almost a whole bottle to myself.
“You love me?” I stammered.
He grinned. Easily. “Of course I love you, Peaches. Have you not been paying attention?”
The song jerked me out of the memory with ear-splitting rock.
I got up from my bed.
And headed straight to the bar.
I rested my chin in the palm of my hand, leaning my elbow on the bar. It was sticky. I didn’t mind.
“You’re cute,” I informed Hades, the man I’d sat down in front of.
Yes, his name was fricking Hades.
We’d already had a five-minute discussion about that. Well, I’d had the discussion. He’d mostly grunted and gave me looks that the actual Hades might even flinch from. But I didn’t flinch because I was anesthetized with around half a bottle of tequila on a half-empty stomach.
Because I couldn’t stomach food all day.
Not since the shower.
Not since someone had banged on the newly broken door, moments after Liam had taken himself from inside me.
The knowledge that we hadn’t used a condom was unmissable.
Luckily I had the implant, for practical reasons more than anything. Birth control wasn’t exactly easy to procure in countries I frequented. Though I always practiced safe sex. I didn’t want a kid. I never wanted them. Not in this new life anyway.
As he ran down my leg, I had a fleeting and insane hope that he’d planted a baby in me. That thought was gone as soon as it arrived when I realized he’d more likely planted an STI in me if anything.
“Hate to interrupt, what sounds like epic makeup sex, and I really do, but we’ve got club business,” Claw’s voice echoed through the closed bathroom door.
I held my breath and Liam stiffened, hands still around me.
I waited for him to curse at the man for his crudeness, tell him to fuck off, then carry me back to the bedroom, dry me off and say something.
Say anything.
Apologize.
Explain.
Hold me.
Make love to me.
Make promises.
“Two seconds,” he growled at the door instead.
I froze.
“If that’s how long you take for round two, then I feel even more sorry for Caroline than I already did,” Claw chuckled.
Liam’s jaw hardened, but he didn’t say anything else.
Nothing else.
Not as he kissed my head, slowly and tenderly, in a moment that gave me hope for something beyond what had just happened.
But then the moment cracked at the same time the small fractured piece of my heart did.
He let me go.
Stepped out of the shower, reached for a towel and handed it to me.
I took it wordlessly.
He grabbed another.
Dried himself off.
I did the same, on autopilot.
I wasn’t numb. I wished I was. Because the aroma of sex and shame was suffocating inside my brain. I felt used and cherished at the same time. Loved and tarnished.
Liam’s eyes didn’t move from mine. He held out his hand to me to get out of the shower.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I ignored it, getting out of the shower with my own strength, though it took almost all of it.
He let out a quiet sigh, his muscles etched from stone and still damp. More scars and tattoos covered that sculpted torso.
I raked my eyes over them, noticing new cuts in places I didn’t even know could get injured. Why did I care about his pain when he continued to cause me agony?
He watched me looking at the ruined skin. Waited.
Just like I waited for him to say something.
Neither of us spoke.
He turned and walked out, leaving me the view of the reaper on his back.
And that ink was the scar that cut me deepest of all.
I heard him dressing in the bedroom.
But I couldn’t move from the spot, dripping wet, his cum running down my fucking leg, my entire body bruised with him. From the inside out.
I heard him shrug on his cut. Waited for him to come in here. Say something. Even fricking goodbye.
But he sighed and his boots walked out.
I sank to the bathroom floor.
Another horrific memory in the vicinity of a shower.
“Cute?” Hades repeated, his voice a low baritone, one shocking me out of my emotional self-flagellation. It was a voice you could almost taste. I imagined it would be bitter, musky, addictive. Deadly.