Page 12 of Grim Tidings

“Idiot,” I mutter.

I dig into my pocket as I push through the door, looking for the box of cigarettes I keep swearing are my last. The harsh bite of early autumn barrels down the alleyway, and I hunch my shoulders against it, leaning up against the brick wall farthest from the dumpsters. The streetlights flicker on and the sun dips a little further beneath the buildings that close in either side of the alley. Everything burns bronze, muffled laughter and music from the bar spilling out from the crack in the door.

I flick open the cigarette box with my thumb and sigh in relief. Just one left.

“Those will kill you, you know.”

Darcy’s husky voice slips around me, and it’s like someone just lit a road flare in the middle of my chest. Every inch of me is aware of her, hovering at the open mouth of the alley, the melting sun casting a wide net around her, her face draped in shadows. Her hair doesn’t look black anymore, but a deep chestnut brown. Still in that neat braid, but with a few strands framed around her round face. She steps over a discarded tire and moves toward me.

I light my cigarette and tuck it in the corner of my mouth, trying to decide if I’m having a particular lucid dream or if Darcy is exactly where I want her to be.

“Thought you left,” I call.

She shrugs and steps around one of the old crates we use to pull in deliveries. “Not quite yet.”

Now that there isn’t a bar between us, I can see more of her. A neat black skirt to match that neat black sweater. Long legs. Smooth curves. Darcy holds herself like a dancer as she moves around the many obstacles between the two of us. Elegant and poised and relentlessly, meticulously contained.

I want to crack that control. I want to coil it around my fist until she bends.

It’s an impulse I’m not familiar with. A rare bite of selfishness.

I take a pull of my cigarette, doing my best to pack those thoughts away. But then Darcy drifts close enough for me to see every faint freckle across the bridge of her nose, and I figure I’ve shown enough good behavior for one night.

She doesn’t stop until she’s standing right in front of me, the toes of her shiny black boots pressed up against the worn leather of mine. She looks up at me through that thick fringe of lashes.

“I honor my deals, Gabriel.”

There’s something about the way she says my name. A pronunciation, maybe. The way she emphasizes certain sounds over others. She says it in the ancient way. The way it was always meant to be said.

“Then why’d you leave?” I murmur.

She glances at the door wedged open with a pie tin. Some of her solemnity slips. “I’m not used to being around so many people.” Her smile is tight. “There were body shots happening. I didn’t want to get roped in.”

“Not a body-shot kind of girl?” I pull the cigarette from my mouth and exhale the smoke to the side, trying to imagine this serious woman splayed out on the bar top, her little sweater with the buttons tucked to her chin. Her long limbs splayed loose. My mouth, working a wet line from her belly button to her hip. Pinning her delicate wrists above her head and—

“No,” she interrupts with a laugh. “I am not a body-shot kind of girl.”

My daydream pops like a soap bubble. I inhale against the cigarette until my lungs burn. Exhale, and try to get my bearings.

“That’s a shame,” I say, keeping my voice light.

She rolls her eyes, then nods at my Marlboro. “Got any more of those?”

“Thought you said they kill you.”

Her smile is all mischief. “We all have to die of something, don’t we?”

I laugh. “Sorry, sweetheart. This is my last one.”

“I don’t mind sharing.”

Awareness lights me up better than the nicotine. My head swims. “Yeah. Neither do I.”

I hold the cigarette out for her to take, but she surprises me. She curls her fingers around my wrist and guides my hand to her mouth until my palm is glancing along the curve of her jaw and her bottom lip is just barely brushing against the edge of my thumb. Her eyes grow heavy, and I watch, spellbound, as she takes a long drag from the remains of my cigarette. Her cheeks hollow slightly, her nails dig into the delicate skin of my wrist, and I’m—I’m done with whatever game this is we’re playing.

I pull the cigarette from her mouth and crash mine against it instead, scooping her closer with one hand while the other tosses the cigarette to the side. I kiss her the way I’ve wanted to all night. Hard. Biting. Devouring. I let myself be selfish, and that voice in the back of my head that’s always advising me to be patient, be kind, be noble and good—it’s deliciously silent. She had her hooks in me from the second she walked in the door, and I can’t explain it. I don’t particularly want to.

I let myself give in to something I rarely allow. I let myself take something purely for the thrill of taking. Just this once.