That’s the problem with men like me. We’re unfeeling. It goes deeper than my scarred skin. It goes all the way down to the hardened, black, rotten organ I call my heart. In my occupation, we do things, see things. It desensitizes us. It makes us monsters to others and dead to ourselves. Until Zoe touched me.
When I held her against me in the lobby of her building, I felt something. It was different to the usual physical arousal that comes with sex. She stirred things inside me, things I thought were dead. She stirred my curiosity about life, about staying pure and beautiful amidst the sins that make grown men unfeeling. When she put her hands on my chest in the shower tonight, I swear my dead skin crawled. There was something there underneath the flesh and blood. I felt her touch in my heart. Longing. Compassion. Admiration. A need to protect. A need to please.
It’s new. It’s confusing. Fuck me if I know what to do with it.
What shall I do with her, my little flower? I look at the house that stands on the cliffs, a beacon of status and wealth with the lights shining from its windows. My gaze finds the room where she’s sleeping, and then I still. A figure stands on the balcony, small and vulnerable against the evil myths and unfortunate truths that lurk in the night. A gust of wind rips her hair across her face. She shouldn’t be out there. She’ll catch pneumonia.
Turning back to the shore, I swim fast. I can find the passage between the sharp rocks blindfolded. In no time, I walk out on the sand, and when I look up, she’s no longer there. I take the path, climbing up the steep steps to the cliff top where I left my clothes. I pull them on over my wet body and make my way back to the house.
I push the front door open, and Zoe stands there, hugging herself. She’s dressed in my robe, one of my T-shirts, and a pair of socks. A different kind of power surges through me. It has nothing to do with being invincible and everything about vulnerability. It’s possessive. I’m overwhelmed with male pride, with owning what stands in front of me. My clothes mark her as mine. The way I took her body is an irrevocable claim. I’m jealous of her. I’m jealous of the men who’ll have her when we’re over, and suddenly the thought is unthinkable.
She’s looking at me with parted lips, questions in her eyes. I lock away my revelations, the strangeness of these new feelings, and shut the door behind me.
Sleeking back my wet, windblown hair, I ask, “What are you doing up?”
“My God, Maxime.” She steps toward me, her eyes big. “You’ll freeze to death.” She scans my face. “Your lips are blue.”
Her concern warms my chest. Pathetically, I want more of her worry. “I thought you would’ve been glad if I dropped dead.”
She grabs my arm and drags me deeper into the house. “Don’t joke about that.”
A smile plucks at my lips. It’s not a forced gesture, but one of those spontaneous ones that feels so unfamiliar it must look unnatural. “About what? Death?” I’m not afraid of it. Not for myself. Yet for her I’m terrified.
She slaps my arm. “Shh. If you say it, you’ll make it happen.”
That makes me smile. It’s not just a quirk of my lips. It’s the full nine yards. “If I talk about my death, I’ll die?”
Her blue eyes grow even rounder. “We attract what we think.”
I’m intrigued. It’s this part of her that fascinates me. “Do you believe in that hocus pocus hippy stuff?”
She gives me a chiding look. “It’s not hippy stuff. It’s quantum physics. It’s the law of energy. What you give is what you get.” Lifting a cocky brow, she continues, “You are what you think. Never heard about that?”
I cross my arms. “Is this a misguided lesson in morals?”
She scrunches up her nose. “No, it’s science. For every action there’s an equal reaction.” She cocks her hip, her posture a challenge. “You said so yourself, didn’t you? Not in so many words, but if you think about it, we really believe in the same thing.” She shrugs. “Actions have consequences.”
She’s cute, this tiny woman. I want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her away to somewhere nicer, someplace happier, but this is who we are, and we’ve already set the chain of actions in motion. It does give me insight into her mind and her thought process though, and I’m hungry to understand her.
I study her sassy little stance and saucy mouth. “It sounds as if you were thinking in my absence.”
She clutches her hands behind her back. “I was.”
I remain quiet, waiting for her to carry on, because I want to know how she operates. I want to know how she survives. Will she roll over and play dead, biding her time until it’s up? Will she go into denial and pretend this isn’t happening by living out some bullshit fantasy in her mind? Will she surrender? Or will she fight me until the end? What makes her tick? What will her strategy be in our war?