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I flash her a wicked grin. “I bought you every book.”
She blinks a few times, processing the information and trying to remember exactly how many books were on that list.
“You should expect them soon. I selected the fastest available shipping option.”
“I...” She searches my face like she’s waiting for the catch. “I don’t know what game you’re playing?—”
“No games, muse. I’ll admit, I started reading one.” I lean closer, elbows on the table. “Didn’t think there would be an explicit public sex scene on page one. Glad I finally discovered what you’re into.”
She leans back, rolling her eyes even as I’m certain her heart is pounding. “Those are just fiction. They don’t say anything about me.”
“They say everything about you. Everything you want me to do to you, spelled out right there in black and white.”
Her eyes flare. “I don’t want you to touch me. In fact, don’t even look at me.”
“The heroine denied what she wanted too. But we both know you’re already soaked at the thought of me eating your pussy right here, where anyone could see.” Granted, we’re the only two in the library, but anyone could walk in at any moment.
She leans forward, challenging me. “You’re disgusting. Tell me, who else have youkilled?”
“You want to know?”
She blinks, startled by my concession. “Yes.”
“The man who attempted to molest me.”
Her expression changes. Fiery blue eyes softening, brows lifting, perfect lips falling slightly apart. “What happened?”
“My mother was a sex worker. She worked out of our little apartment, but she did her best to keep me from seeing or hearing the worst of it. All I knew was my mother had a lot of friends who came in and out, some we saw often and others we saw once and never again. One of them—” I swallow, plagued by images of that monster even years later. “One of them used her to get to me.”
Briar goes rigid, hanging on to my every word. But she doesn’t interrupt or push for more information before I’m ready to give it.
He was short, scrawny, and balding. The type of man my mother typically serviced. Reserved and didn’t say much in or out of the bedroom. He was a repeat client, returning every week, but eventually his visits didn’t include trips to my mother’s bedroom. He’d bring us food or a toy for me. My mother started smiling when he showed up, excitedly announcing whenever he was on his way.
He convinced us to trust him. Convinced us that he was a different type of man. Safe.
Until he knocked on the door one day when my mother wasn’t home. While she was out getting groceries, he finally took advantage of his opportunity to get me alone.
For some, their brains erase the trauma from their minds, replacing it with nothing but darkness.
I remember every second of that afternoon.
Never open the door for anyone but me, Saint. But I made an exception when I spotted him through the peephole, knowing my mother wouldn’t mind. He was safe. He watched as I played with my new toy on the floor—a racecar that I sped through our thin, threadbare carpet and over the coffee table with the wobbly leg.
He said I should try my toy in my room. I nodded and sat on the floor, the one room in our apartment that my motherinsisted was entirely and solely my own. That even she wouldn’t intrude on unless she smelled food rotting. A woman who had long forsaken privacy and autonomy wanted as much of it for me as she could give.
While I zoomed the car in the narrow space between my bed and window, the door creaked open. A sound that still haunts my dreams, the creeping shadow of his lanky body intruding on my space.
I didn’t correct him. Didn’t tell him that my mother said this room was only for me. He was a friend. I’d never had a friend in our apartment, let alone my room. What could it hurt?
He sat on the edge of my bed and patted it. “Come sit by me.”
I did, bringing my car with me and rationalizing why he wanted us to sit on the bed, which was far more comfortable than the floor.
“It’s pretty hot in here, isn’t it? We should take our shirts off so we don’t get them all sweaty.”
Normally, it was never hot in my room, especially in the winter. Some nights, we could see our breath, even when we slept under as many blankets as we could find. But now that he mentioned it, sweat was pooling under my arms. So I nodded and took my shirt off.
But he didn’t do the same.
