Page 57 of Sinful Lord

This time, Melina hardly even flinches as I step toward her.

“I almost died,” she chokes as if the cold water still needs to be pumped from her lungs. “I almost fucking died.”

The dread and sadness in her voice stops me at the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my shadow covering her completely. “I failed you. It won’t happen again.”

Melina’s shoulders sink into my words. It’s like she wants to believe me—or maybe she’s just tired. I wouldn’t blame her.

“… At least my apartment's warm now,” she sighs, curling up into a tiny ball.

“And you've started painting again,” I note, nodding over to the colorful canvas. “Life isn’t so bad. I’m not so bad.”

I’ve never wanted to hug someone so badly. She looks so lonely and isolated in her little corner of this cold dark world. So desperate to be held.

I could be the one to hold her.

But I need to be careful. Melina can’t break. I can’t let her break.

Don’t forget what this is all for, I tell myself.

But in this tender, vulnerable moment, those words ring shallow.

“No. You are that bad,” Melina weakly huffs, looking up at me again. Those hazel eyes lift and fall over my bloody body. “But maybe that’s what I need right now…”

“What else do you need?” I quickly ask. “Tell me. More money? More medicine? A bigger place? More art supplies?”

But we both know that’s not what she really needs. Those are just distractions, a way to avoid the obvious.

Melina doesn’t need things. She needs someone, if even only for one single tender moment. She’s been starved of that ever since she escaped her gilded cage.

Since I helped her escape.

Her loneliness is my responsibility now.

“You already got all of that stuff for me…” she sighs.

“I can get more,” I stubbornly insist.

“I don’t want more of that,” she says. “But… thank you… I guess… for taking care of me… for giving me a second chance…”

With a great deal of care, I kneel down until our eyes are level with each other.

“It’s what you deserve,” I say.

“Why do I deserve it?” she asks, faintly. “Because I paint for you? Because I…”

Her hazel eyes drop and the red hue of her cheeks turns a rosy shade of pink.

“I don’t need a reason to take care of you,” I tell her, my heart pounding through the half-truth, half-lie. “But that painting is a good start.”

To my surprise, that draws a little laugh from Melina’s plump lips.

“You could have seen it earlier if you weren’t such a little stalker,” she huffs.

“Oh, nothing about me is little, princess. That’s why I had to stay away. You weren’t ready for me.”

“I am now?”