Page 9 of The Square

It will take me two seconds to get her naked. Two more to sit her down on the overstuffed deck chair and spread her legs open. One second after that my tongue will lick her pussy and the whole thing will begin.

But I don’t want to rush it.

She must not either because she pulls my white shirt out of my pants and begins to slowly unbutton it from the bottom, her eyes locked on mine as her fingers open me up and the warm wind blows across my bare chest.

She unbuttons the shirt cuffs next. My diamond cufflinks disappearing. Some secret pocket of hers, or maybe she drops them onto a cushion. Doesn’t matter. They mean nothing to me. Diamonds have no value in our world. They are things we use, and steal, and trade for favors. And they don’t belong here in this moment. Because time is the only thing with value right now. Time is the only thing we can’t use, or steal, or trade. And I don’t want to waste any of it thinking about diamonds.

I close my eyes when she drags her nails over my shoulders, pulling the shirt down my arms. She lets it hang there, billowing out behind me in the tropical breeze as she begins to kiss my chest. I picture her lips on my tattoos. And when I open my eyes again she’s dragging her mouth across a red skull with black eyes.

“There’s something dark about you, Danny,” she says.

I nod. Because there is. There are lots of really dark things about me. Things she probably thinks she knows, but doesn’t.

Her eyes dart up to meet mine. “But I don’t need to know them to love you.”

I thread my fingers into her hair, palming her head as I gently pull her up. We linger like that—lips not yet touching, but close enough to count. Close enough that even the slightest movement will connect us, mouth to mouth.

I don’t have anything to say about what she needs to know. There is very little light inside me. Very little. She’s poked me with that stick enough times to understand I’m not blue inside. She knows the truth even if I never explained it to her. But she’s keeping her secrets so I’m keeping mine.

None of it matters anymore, anyway.

“So I hope you don’t need to understand my dark side to love me,” she finishes.

Ah. I get it.

The betrayal.

And it goes both ways, right? Alec somehow betrayed her and we all know how she betrayed him.

“I would never do that to you.”

“No,” I say. It comes out as agreement but that’s not how I meant it. I meant it as, ‘No?’ Because she already did betray me. When she stayed behind with Alec after I left. Finding that out fucking hurt. Such jealousy. Such rage. So much darkness inside me in that moment.

I wanted to kill him.

I still feel the sting of that deception.

But I let it fade now just like I did back then. There’s no time for regrets. Not tonight.

This will be the first time I’ll ever have her alone. Truly alone. And I don’t know how long I’ll get to have her to myself.

Because Alec.

Because we’ll either get Alec back and be us again… or we’ll die trying..