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“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” This must be what my high school teacher felt like when I told him I had no plans to follow through with music. I can’t fathom that Lucian would let such a beautiful piece collect dust.
“I didn’t write it to do anything with it. I wrote it to get it out of my head.”
What a wondrous place it must be inside his mind. A dark and wicked place, brimming with the bizarre and peculiar, just like the song.
His eyes finally fall on me, the soft amber glow of his irises eclipsed by shadows. “It reminds me of you.”
The dryness of my throat becomes apparent when I attempt to swallow. “How so?”
“The way it’s haunting. Delicate. Perilous, yet somehow alluring.” Precisely the words I’d use to describe the song. “Annoying as fuck.”
At a burst of laughter through my nose, I cover my face. “I annoy you?”
“Incessantly.”
My laughter wilts to a sigh as his lips snare my attention, lulling me into the memory of being on the rooftop, lying beneath him. The many times I’ve thought about his kiss since that night, tasted the whiskey on my tongue, and have longed to feel the butterflies in my stomach again. The right and wrong waging war inside my head. The lure of it all, so intoxicating, I don’t even realize I’m leaning into him until my lips brush his.
What are you doing! The warning blares inside my head.
His thigh twitches beneath my palm where I’ve unwittingly placed my hand.
Oh, my God.
Mortification washes over me in excruciating colors of red, as I back away enough to see the disapproval darkening his eyes.
He snatches up my wrist from his lap, startling me, and I wonder if he’ll slap me across the face with my own hand. “You misunderstand my intent.”
“I’m sorry.” Cheeks burning with humiliation, I can’t bring myself to look at him. “I thought you …. I mean we …. I thought you wanted …”
“You’re a teenager. Practically a child. I’m a grown man.” The derision in his voice is thick and condescending.
“I’m not a child,” I snap, the distraction of his insult smoldering my embarrassment. “You had no problem kissing me before, as I recall.”
Eye twitching, jaw shifting, he stares back at me. “A drunken mistake, as I said.”
A mistake. I was a mistake.
I try not to let the harsh blow of his mockery slip beneath my skin, but I can’t help it. “You really are something.” I hate that my voice cracks on the last word, and I have to look away momentarily when the stinging rims of my eyes threaten tears. “You and I aren’t so different, you know.” Twisting my arm still caught in his grasp, I break loose and peel back the sleeve of my shirt to show the scars across my arm. “I know what it’s like to push people away, too.”
He doesn’t spare them so much as a glance. “You think your small inconspicuous scars make us alike? You are nothing like me, Isa. You have no idea what I am, or what I’ve done to earn my scars.”
“You’re not a monster. Nor the devil everyone says you are. Devils don’t help people.” Beneath the cold shadows in his eyes lies a flicker of warmth, so subtle, I almost wonder if I’m imagining it. “You’re just alone. Like me.”
He snorts a mirthless laugh. “I’ve never been alone. That’s the problem with having money. There’s always someone who wants it.”
“Is money always your excuse? Because mine was always that they weren’t smart enough. Mature enough.”
A muscle in his jaw tics, as I imagine him grinding my words in his teeth.
“What do you want, Isa?” He lifts my wrist to his face, holding it there as he kisses the skinny white lines across my skin. “You want me to fuck you? So you can add more to your collection?”
“Fuck you.” I wrench my arm back, but he tightens his grip. “You don’t have to be cruel.”
“I do. It’s the nature of my being. You’re right, though. I’ve done a number of sadistic things to myself over the years.” He runs his thumb over my scars, as if reading them, and that flickering warmth returns again. “But depriving myself has always been the worst.”
The sadness, the loneliness in his voice tugs at my heart, and for a brief moment, I wonder if this is his honesty bleeding through the steel. Arm still propped in the air, I uncurl my fist to touch his face.
