Page 83 of Taint My Soul

“Far from it. It’s someone I shouldn’t even think of being with. He doesn’t know about our roots. I’m not sure he’ll be comfortable with the truth.”

“You’ll never know. Just follow your gut.”

My gut? That’s not what I was taught.

Logic is what matters. Evidence. Real, raw evidence. What I can see and touch. Not feelings.

Maybe this brunch was a bad idea.

Maybe it’s not. Maybe I should listen to my younger brother and go after Mason. I won’t make it just about my body or satisfying my sickness.

Every scorching nerve in me wants Mason in a suffocating way.

And soon, I’ll run out of air.

I’m fucked.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

MASON

All week, I haven’t seen him. Haven’t heard his familiar voice or even breathed in his expensive scent.

I should have schooled myself for thinking that kiss meant something. I shouldn’t have fucking thought about it to comfort myself.

He hasn’t come into the office. And I’m left alone, day in, day out, staring at my computer most of the time, trying to take my mind off Vincent’s constant threats. I get off the bed every morning. No matter what I’m feeling. No matter how heavy my heart is. And he can’t even be at the office. He can’t even check in on me.

I hate it. I hate what that moment did to me. I hate that those two weeks brought us closer. It showed me things about him I shouldn’t have known.

Things I shouldn’t even have condoned.

He’s a killer. He’s dangerous. But I carry scars of his mistakes. Scars of what he did twenty years ago.

I hate that I have to go home every evening to the monster waiting for me, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. And a silly part of me thinks maybe he’ll come to my apartment and make all these mind-crippling emotions go away.

How did I go from focusing on the job to wanting him? I should have said no to that goddamn kiss. It started all this. It’s making me feel all these emotions. Everything except disgust.

I hate it all.

As I stalk out of the company premises to the taxi waiting on the other side of the street, my phone buzzes with a message from the Red Horn Club. Madame needs me tonight. My heart jumps into my throat at the memory of what happened the last time I was back there. The mess with Kurt. Shoving him in the alley and getting so hauntingly angry that I wanted to do more than shove him.

I just hope she’s not about to put me into another private room with some motherfucker who thinks they can buy my ass with their money. Saint included.

But the kiss with Saint wasn’t something I did out of obligation to the contract Vincent made me sign. I kissed him because I wanted to. And I regret it.

I regret that he picked me up from the corroded floors of that forsaken prison and handed me over to Bernard. I hate that I didn’t want him to stop holding me. I hate that I waited by the car for him, hoping that something different would happen, yet he crushed my heart and hope in his hands.

He made me feel like a fool for thinking everything would be different.

And it was because halfway to my apartment building, he ran to me. He knelt for me. He asked me to kiss him, and I foolishly kissed him.

I’m so stupid for thinking that I could have something.

I have never had anything to myself.

I have spent my entire life running and looking over my shoulders, hoping I’d get a good night’s sleep without waking up drenched in my sweat from a nightmare. I have always been worried about my safety, and I have never had a stable relationship with anyone since my parents died.

I get into a taxi, drop off at my apartment, then I head over to the club. Stepping into the dressing room, Cash stands in front of the mirror amongst other workers at the club. He turns on his heel and smiles at me, waving his long, manicured nails toward me. I walk past him and head straight into Madame’s office. What I see is her on her knees, lips wrapped tightly around a man’s dick. Her jaded eyes snap over to me, and she gets on her feet, body vibrating with embarrassment as she regards me with a glare. The man quickly tucks his penis away while I stare at both of them awkwardly.