I consider lying, then shrug. “Well, compared to the way you looked before ... yeah.”
His eyebrows rise to his hairline before a slow smile starts to creep across his boxy face. He’s got a boxer’s nose now, with a ridge in the middle; a squarer, flared jaw; a fuller mouth. In its most relaxed state, he still looks mean. Like his insides have finally started to reflect on his outsides. And the fact that I still find him the hottest thing I’ve ever come across, I know says more about me.
I open my mouth to ask him how he’s feeling after ... all of it ... but before I can get a word off, he starts laughing. “You’re such a bitch.”
I grin wider than I ever have in my life, at least that I can remember, and when Taranis starts laughing in earnest, these deep belly laughs that sound totally at odds with his typically harsh demeanor, I start to laugh too.
In the darkness of his massive flat, we stand there naked, facing each other, laughing so hard we can’t catch our breaths. He leans onto his forearm on the kitchen island, his body surrounding mine. His heat crashing against my heat. The intoxicating smell of his body mixing with the smell of his cum and my sweat. I tip my forehead forward and place it against his burly chest. He cups the back of my head with a hand covered in claws. And we keep laughing until finally, Darius jerks my head back and presses a quick peck to my mouth. “You’re going to pay for that,” he whispers.
“Please, Taranis.” I’m panting again, the little monster whore that I’ve become.
“No.” He grabs my neck. Squeezes. I look into his eyes and watch the blue lighten even lighter than it was until it shines nearly white. “You call meDarius.”
“Darius . . .”
“Not just for tonight, but from now on.”
Then he swings me up over his shoulder, still chuckling like a male I don’t even recognize, for more reasons than one, and I can’t help but think that I might be in big, big trouble.
Chapter Fifteen
Monika
A familiar sound grates at my eardrums, a sound that can only be one thing. I jolt upright—or try to—but Darius’s limbs are heavy, pinning me. His arm locks over my back and his knee digs into my thigh. “What are you doing?”
I squirm. “My phone. I think my mom’s calling.”
“It’s the middle of the night. Call her in the morning,” Darius grumbles, sounding more like his old self, and deeply annoyed.
“My mom is hyperorganized and knows what time it is here,” I say on a yawn. “She wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t important.”
“Fine. Crawl,” he orders me.
“I’m not going to crawl,” I laugh, choking on the sound. “Punish me when I get back.” And in a fit of insanity, I turn over to face him in the bed and quickly dive in to give his cheek a peck.
His eyes fly open and he looks at me. Just stares.
“What?” I whisper, feeling a little self-conscious, and then even more so when he doesn’t answer. “I’ll be right back.”
I shove at him as best I can until I’m able to stumble out of the bed to his walk-in closet. I don’t want to call my mom back while wearing nothing but my birthday suit. Especially not after the night I’ve had. Ifshe knew even one of the things I got up to tonight, she’d likely hire a hit squad to kidnap me back to Berlin and never let me out of her sight.
As quietly as I can, I ravage Taranis’s walk-in closet, grabbing the first T-shirt and sweatpants I see, and book it downstairs. My phone rings again as I make it to the island.
“Annyeong, Eomma,” I say, trying to keep my voice light.
Immediately I know something’s wrong. My mom’s voice is strained as she says slowly, in Korean, “I am sorry for calling you so early your time, Monika, but Cynthia has been involved in a terrible car accident and can’t get through to her mother. Can you please go to the hospital to check on her?”
No. Absolutely not. I hate that bitch. “Of course,Eomma.”
“I know you two don’t have the best relationship,” she says, surprising me by acknowledging it for once. “But she sounded really afraid. I thought about flying in myself.” That shocks me to my core.
“What did she say happened?” I ask as I book it down the hall. I consider going upstairs to tell Darius I’m leaving, but I can hear the sound of his snores. Instead, I take the hallway to the left, finding the floor plan familiar even if his penthouse is three times the size of my three-bedroom. Our places share that, in part, but absolutely nothing else.
His foyer is cold and unwelcoming, just like the rest of his penthouse. I push the button to his elevator, my mom still talking until the connection cuts out. “She was so excited when she caused Taranis to change into his othershape...” my mom says, lacking the word forreversionin Korean that would mean the exact same thing. She cuts back in when I hit the lobby. “ ... she took interviews for hours.” I wince, hating that more than I have a right to. Taranis isn’t mine, even if I’m starting to feel something for Darius. “She only wrapped up an hour ago when she drove herself home and was hit by a truck. It didn’t stop. They didn’t catch the driver ...”
“She drove herself?” I ask, slipping into the back of a car Marsha—Taylor’s cheerier, older white-lady counterpart—hails for me,shooting a curious look down at my bare feet. “That doesn’t sound like Cynthia.” I wasn’t even confident she had a license; her mother’s people always drove her everywhere.
“No, it doesn’t, but I guess she was so excited she thought it was a good idea.” My mother curses, making me gasp as the car zips away from the curb. She never curses. “Sorry,Schatz.” I stick out my bottom lip, feeling suddenly overwhelmed as she uses the German pet name my father uses for me. “I’m just stressed. She sounded so strange when I spoke to her. I just want you to make sure she’s okay.”
