Page 40 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

The air leaves my lungs in a rush.

I don’t get why he’s saying that, don’t understand his connection to the Lyons, why he thinks it’s his fault they took me. I don’t understand any freaking thing.

Except that he means what he just said, same as he meant it when he said he was a monster.

And I hate that. So freaking much.

My throat goes tight, my eyes burn. “Thorn,” I whisper. “Come here.”

His face gentles and slowly, he steps closer. But there’s not a speck of fear in me, not the slightest bit in my soul.

I just want him to touch me.

To kiss me.

My lips part on a shaky exhale and heat burns through me when his eyes go to my mouth, when he shifts even closer, when those fingertips brush along my jaw. “River,” he rasps, bending and?—

A phone rings in the other room.

He freezes, drops his hand like it’s been burned, and skitters back a step like the ground is going to give way and take him down with it.

Then he turns to go.

But he pauses in the doorway, his gaze coming back to mine.

Holding.

“Stay, little hen,” he says before he disappears.

And it’s not an order. Not really.

It’s…a plea. To stay in bed. To stay here. To stay with Thorn.

“Meow?”

I turn to see Violet standing at the end of the bed and shake my head at myself, at the confusing man, at the decision I make in the next heartbeat that will likely be a mistake.

“Yeah, baby,” I tell her as I scratch her behind her ears,

“I guess I’m staying.”

Thirteen

Thorn

I’m a fucking idiot.

And I can’t make myself stop.

I should let River go, let her stay with Brooks and Briar.

Not only would it simplify things from a security perspective, but she clearly wants to go.

I just…

Can’t let her go.

Not yet.