Page 125 of Petrify

“So you ran away and made yourself comfortable with my money.” The salt of her skin blooms on my tongue. I hold her so tightly she can’t move, her fingers leaving smudges against the glass. Even in the dark I can see how flushed she is, how needy.

“Henri’s money,” she says.

“Is that all you wanted? Was this all some ploy to get your hands in the family fortune?”

“You know it wasn’t.” Her voice softens. “You can’t be angry that I care for him. He doesn’t have anyone else.”

“Ihave no one else.” I turn her face toward me. “And you leftme.”

“I’m sorry.” She’s spinning in my arms, leaning forward, so she can grab my face and press her lips to mine. All the air leaves my lungs.

Then my back collides with her bed, after a single shove, and she’s climbing over my lap. Her thighs spread wide, her wet cunt landing right on my cock. A string of expletives fall from my lips.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. She moves her hips just enough to torture me.

“Show me how much,” I say.

Ever the obedient supplicant, she sinks onto me with greed, dripping already, smearing her arousal all over her thighs. She’s tight, unstretched, but her wince of pain is that much more erotic.

“God—fuck.”

She stills when her ass meets my thighs, breathing through the feeling of my cock buried deep, all at once, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Look at me.”

She listens. Her pussy flutters around me and it takes everything in me not to grab her hips and thrust. She’s warm and wet and solid on top of me and I can’t fucking believe this is real, that I’m inside her again.

“I’m sorry,” she says. The tips of her fingers trace from my brow to my chin, like she can’t believe I am real, either.

I worried she would scream when she saw me. I worried she would tell me she hates me, that I am too dark an affliction to stand. I worried I would never getthisagain. Three months I left her alone. Let her get on her feet. Find a new rhythm.

I worried she wouldn’t miss me.

She leans down, hovering over me, her short hair a curtain around our faces.

“You cut it.” I tuck a strand behind her ear.

“Something new.” The corner of her mouth quirks. “You like it?”

“Mallary, you’re gorgeous.” There’s more I want to say. I could write entire poems about her. I could write an entire symphony just for her. Then maybe she’ll understand how I feel.

Her eyes widen again, a sound stalling in her throat, before her lips are pressed against mine. She kisses me with fervor, sliding her tongue into my mouth at the same time she cants her hips, nudging me deeper.

Fuck.

If anything,shewill be the death ofme.

“How have you not been arrested?”

An hour later, in the kitchen, she insists on preparing a drink for me. All she has is tea. Something pink and floral and sweet. I can’t tell her no.

I give her a look. “No one was arrested for what happened tome. Leo paid well for discretion.” If he hadn’t, the truth would have come out long ago. Even in his death, it remains buried. “And if someone did have a tendency to let things slip, well, he paid Desmond the most to clean up all those messes.”

She’s put the marble island between us. Her tea cup sits steaming, untouched.

“Why, you wish I was arrested?”

Her eyes flick up to mine. “No.”