“Notmake love,” I snapped my eyes shut, listening to him laugh at me. “You know what I mean!” I nudged him hard in the chest, but he didn’t flinch, only grabbed my wrists and pinned them down.
“I told you to stop.” Thay’s lips hovered over mine in a playful dare. “Why is that what you got me, Daphne? You? From the heart?”
A ball of air lodged in my throat, sliding down in a zigzag pattern that made it difficult to breathe. I could not tell if he was being serious or just liked to see how far he could push me beyond that invisible line he refused to cross.
“No,” I admitted, pointing to his nightstand. “I bought you the Winsor & Newton paintbrushes you’ve been eyeing since birth,” I beamed, watching several shadows move over his face. “And before you say anything, I’ve been taking extra shifts at the diner when you are out on surveillance. I can’t stand going to bed alone, and well, I wanted you to have them.”
“Those brushes are hundreds of dollars, Daph.”
“Yeah, but you’re worth it,” I shimmered. “To me.”
Thay released my wrists and scrambled around the bedside drawer until a piece of paper hit my chest.
“What is this?”
“It is your present,” he nodded.
“Thay?” I scowled, reading the payment receipt for the rest of my tuition. “How the hell did you get the money for this?” Financial aid covered most of my fees for midwifery school, but I still had to pay a small portion.
“Not just me. Wolfe. Blade. Jessie and Nathem all pitched in too. We would not let you miss out, Daphne. Not after how hard you worked to get in.”
A crackle hit my chest, forming drops of rain in the corner of my eyes.
“Daphne,” Thay’s tongue swept slowly up my cheek to catch my tears before they fell.
“It is too much,” I whimpered, the heat of his body creating clouds around my senses.
“Yeah, but you’re worth it,” he trailed his touch down over my earlobe until he found the slope of my neck. “To me.”
The taste of snow clung to the air, creating seasons within our four walls, but I barely noticed. Because even when we were freezing to death, he made everything warm.
“Daphne,” he spoke against my lips, moving, heating my core, titillating the quietest moments deep inside me into sweeping hues.
“And the answer is yes,” his foggy breath billowed over us in the form of smoke. “I think about fucking you every second of every minute, every goddamn day.”
It would be a month before he finally took me, slow and physical, breaking every inch until I folded under the body climax. The pressure of a soul grinding against another, lighting pathways in a nervous system that I did not know existed. Sending sensations between my toes that kissed into the follicles of my hair.
He still did not kiss me, but it did not matter.
It was violent in the way Argento paintedSuspiriawith such pretty colors.
I was complete, and then…
I was empty.
Dead.
Left in the graveyard beneath his headstone.
Because he gave me all of himself and then walked away… like it never fucking happened.
twenty-three
Daphne: Let's
“What the hell happened to you last night?” Finn groaned, shoving aside several Doppler monitors and tossing items into his kit with a splat. He was wearing a white T-shirt that hung loosely over navy joggers, and a scowl that didn’t relent.
“Mmmh?” his eyes flashed wide as he stepped into me, crowding me against the industrial shelves that lined the stockroom of the birthing center.
