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It’s not even that which does me in, though. It’s the way she looks up at me, like she’s just waiting to hear that she did a good job, that is the final nail in my coffin.
I hook my arms under her elbows and pull her up to stand. Claire wobbles when I let go of her, but I steady her immediately with one hand on her hip, the other on the back of her head, as I crash my lips against hers.
Chapter thirty-eight
Claire
If killing together doesn’t bond a set of people, having each other’s cum on your lips must. We’re both quiet the rest of the shower once I finally get my mouth away from his. It’s a peaceful sort of quiet, not awkward or stilted, as we both contemplate our own thoughts. I let him wash me, and when I wrap the towel around myself and make for the bedroom door, he catches my hand in his and pulls me back. “Stay.”
My mouth opens of its own volition. “We agreed to one time, and we’ve far surpassed that.”
“We agreed to one night.” He says, stepping closer to me and tucking a strand of still-damp hair behind my ear. “And I want every minute of it.”
I’m not sure there are words sufficient for the feelings waging war inside me, but ‘no’ absolutely isn’t it. I can’t turn down that request, not when it came so sweetly from those lips that have been all over me tonight, and especially not when he looks at me like that. “I can’t. I—”
“I’m not asking for anything more, Claire. I just want you to sleep next to me.”
It seems like such an odd request, given that we’ve established boundaries beyond the boundaries we already blew to smithereens, but I’m too disarmed to say no. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
“What a shame…” He says slowly, sounding none-too-bothered by that predicament. When I swat him playfully in the arm, he breaks into a grin and crosses to his dresser, digging a worn T shirt from one of the drawers and holding it between us with a little bit of reluctance. “You slept nude earlier.”
“Earlier wasn’t a choice.” I laugh, though I can’t deny I’m turned on by the thought of lying next to him all night without anything between us. The reality, I’m sure, wouldn’t be as sexy. I toss and turn too much to be comfortable with the sheets rubbing back and forth across my nipples.
“Fine.” He sighs dramatically as I take the shirt from him, so I throw him a bone and let my towel drop without turning around as I drag the shirt over my head. It barely covers my ass, and as he’s reaching for a fresh pair of boxers for me, I tell him not to bother and then dash over to his bed, diving quickly under the sheets. Something about sleeping without bottoms feels even more illicit than sleeping entirely nude, and I certainly don’t want any obstructions if he chooses to wake me up with a little bit of foreplay.
When I look back at him, it’s to see him lick his lips, almost like it’s an unconscious thought, and then he drops his towel and runs like I did, diving onto the bed right next to me. It takes a moment before he draws the sheets over his waist, but when he does, he turns to me with a grin that’s more smile than smirk. There’s something oddly genuine, oddly vulnerable, about the moment. And then he leans over to turn the light off.
For a moment, my voice sticks in my throat as I contemplate asking him to leave it on. I’m sure it would be weird for him to sleep with a perfectly unreasonable amount of light in the room, but I also don’t have any doubts that he’d do it if I asked. I also don’t have any doubts that I’ve never been safer than I am with him.
When I was younger, I was scared that the monsters of the world would come to me in the dark—whether they came to me from under my bed, a mirror across from where I slept, or the room across the hall. I’m old enough to know that monsters exist in the light, too. But this man has held my life in his hands. He’s pulled me from the darkness and carried me into a darkness of another kind. He’s worshipped me and desecrated me, and I’ve never felt so inexorably connected to someone.
Underlying all of the serotonin and the sense of peace is the smallest seed of negativity. It’s reality, waiting for a chance to shake me awake and ruin whatever spell we’re under.
I push it down as easily as Remy flips off the light switch. No sooner do I manage that, than he pats the space next to him.
The nightlight from the bathroom offers me all I need—especially because with the closet doors still bent, the reflection is magnified. I know what he’s suggesting even though he’s dimly lit. I draw closer to him, resting my head in the crook of his arm, breathing in the smell of the soap we both showered with, hearing his heartbeat as it reaches the ear I’ve pressed against his chest. He doesn’t wrap his arm around me, doesn’t close me in, and yet as I drift off to sleep, I feel entirely encompassed by him.
Chapter thirty-nine
Claire
I think some people would call this a walk of shame, sneaking through the hall in the dark wearing a man’s clothes with my own stuffed in my arms. But I have no shame—not even a little—as I sneak out of Remy’s room, leaving him still sound asleep in the darkness. I don’t know what time it is, but the house is quiet, and I feel confident that everyone is still sleeping. My thoughts drift to Rhea as I glance at her door, wondering if she made herself sick last night.
That idea does send a little guilt through me. Was I fucking her brother all night while she had her head in the toilet? I probably should have left the wake when she did, if only to keep her company on the bathroom floor all night. We’ve drifted apart just a little these last few weeks, and as much as it hurts to consider, it’s both a blessing and a curse. I yearn for the sister I had before we left the states, but I am happy to see her thriving without my constant presence in her life. Of course, Rhea was never the one I was truly worried about. Of course she’ll be fine in the real world. It’s me who doesn’t know how to exist without her. And to make matters worse, now I don’t know how I’m supposed to exist without Remy, too.
I went into this trip with the knowledge that my best friend’s older brother was mysterious, sexy, flirtatious, and oddly comforting. From the first moment I saw him, I had a school-girl crush—the innocent yet obsessive kind that makes you blush in their presence. We played a little game of push and pull, and then we were bonded by something heavier than the mutual attraction we both seemed to feel from the start. That bond still exists, but the weight of it has eased, so we grew comfortable enough to begin playing with fire.
I know I’m going to get burned when we go home. Remy lives in Costa Rica, and I’m here on a passport that I don’t even know the validity of. In a few more weeks, Rhea and I will go back to our apartment, back to classes and ordering take-out, and in the winter, I will visit her hometown for the last time. The inevitability of it all is stark, looming in the distance, but it’s all a problem for another time.
Leaving Remy will hurt because it will mean abandoning what could have been, if things had gone differently. It will mean acknowledging that my position in life is tied to my best friend’s, and in the absence of that, I have nothing. Those thoughts could eat me alive if I let them, just like thoughts of his inevitable rejection could destroy me if I give them the space to.
But I’m going to put my problems aside, the way I always have, and make the most of the time I have left like this.
When I flip on the light switch to my bathroom, I’m distinctly grateful that I woke before Remy did, and even more grateful that I didn’t run into Rhea in the hall. My hair is wild, locks of it crimped and matted from falling asleep with it wet, and the makeup I forgot I was wearing yesterday which ran from my eyelashes during our shower has clumped together at random. What hasn’t stayed on my lashes is below my eyes in deep, dark smudges and, I’m sure, all over Remy’s pillow. But none of that is the damning part about my appearance.
The thing that sticks out the most is the light but prominent bruising on my throat—it’s faint, more yellow than blue, but against my otherwise fair skin, it stands out like a brand. In a way, it is. I may not belong to Remington Boudreaux, now or ever, but it’s fair to say that a part of my soul will always be his. I sacrificed it when I chose to exorcise my demons in Remy’s presence, and then we consummated that after like some kind of fucked up ritual. It was never meant to be depraved; it was never meant to cement us together.
His fingerprints on my neck are like a necklace, the thumb on one side, and four small oval shapes on the other, leaving the hollow of my neck unmarred. You can hardly see them from some angles, and I don’t doubt they’ll heal quickly, but I can't hide in my room until they do.
