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But then his hand was gone and so was he. She opened her eyes to be sure, looking around with wild eyes. Down the hall, she heard the door to the guest room open and close.
It took her panicking brain a moment to realize exactly what that meant.
And then she slid down the fridge to the pool of her own clothes on the floor, unable to put to words the feeling expanding inside of her, pushing at her seams until she felt like she might explode.
???????
Gripping himself in a tight, slick fist, Rafe bared his teeth in a savage grimace as he imagined burying himself inside her softness while fucking her into submission. She seemed to like doing it with her eyes closed; he wanted them open, wanted to see those pupils expand until her eyes were filled with the same dark shadows as his, and her body was filled with him.
Finally, exhausted, he collapsed naked against the bed, letting the soiled boxer briefs he’d used to come into drop to the floor. As his breathing slowed and his body relaxed, he thought of her. He wanted her to look at him the way she had looked in her kitchen, with her body arched and her fingers spreading her glistening cunt in invitation.
How did someone fuck a woman to make her look like the very act of breathing was its own kind of benediction, and she was the only goddess who could bestow it? Sighing in frustration, he yanked the sheets over his hips and rolled over, letting his eyes flutter closed. He didn’t know.
The last of the light had faded when he opened them again. Except for the occasional creak of the house settling, there was a deathly silence.She must be asleep, he thought, pulling his sweatpants over his bare legs and stealing out of his room into the hall into darkness.
Rafe turned on one of the living room’s lights, the floor lamp in the corner, and poured himself a generous glass of his father’s whiskey. Marco Nicastro had always had good taste in expensive things.His wife included, he thought grimly, swirling the amber liquid in his hand.
He turned on the TV, dialing the volume down low until it was scarcely audible. Since it was mid-October, a lot of horror movies were being licensed out late at night, when the rates were cheaper. He hit onThe Blob,The Howling, and one of the manyDraculaincarnations, before landing on—of all things—Rabid.
Nineteen-year-old Adonica Blake was heart-stoppingly beautiful. He remembered thinking she looked like a Disney princess with her big eyes and curly hair, and then, later, he remembered thinking she would be mean. Stepmothers always were, according to his childhood logic, and most of his classmates were quick to share their own stories about their hated stepparents, further cementing his doubts.
But Donni had been—well, not exactly sweet. But inclusive. Accepting. She had watched movies with him like this (although never her own). It was the only time he was allowed to stay up late. Sometimes she would make popcorn or run her fingers through his hair, and the sweetness of being touched instead of pushed away had made him go so still that he felt like he might shatter like one of his mother’s glass figurines if he moved. Because moving might make her remember that he was something she didn’t want. His grip tightened around the fragile crystal.
That was what his mother did. She tolerated his presence only if he were both silent and still. Anything more exhausted her patience, and her, and in the end, not even that had been enough to keep her in his life. Sometimes, he missed the days before everything had gone to fuck. When innocence had been the only thing keeping his love from turning into the black and poisonous desire that consumed everything good in its path, leaving him with only a faintly bitter echo of what had once passed for affection in his life.
But not even Donni had ever really loved him. Not completely—and later, not the way he’d wanted. To get her back, he’d had to leverage her tragedy and desperation against her.
And he knew that she would leave him even now if she could.
The sound of shattering glass startled him, and then he felt a sting on his cheek and a throbbing in his hand, and realized that his powerful grip had been too much for the beveled crystal to withstand. He had squeezed it so hard that he had caused the glass to explode.
“Fuck,” he snarled, forgetting to be quiet.
A light flicked on, momentarily blinding him. He swore again, blinking his watering eyes as he shielded them with his good hand. Donni was standing in the hallway, silhouetted in the gloom, wearing a fleece robe over something that appeared to be both silky and brief.
His cock stirred against his thigh and he muttered another curse under his breath. “Don’t come in,” he said, hoarse-voiced from whiskey. “There’s broken glass.”
Donni disappeared but the hall light remained on, and she when she came back it was with a small cordless vacuum. He sat stock-still as she ran it over his sweatpants, avoiding his thighs so conspicuously that he knew she could see his hard-on; the sofa; and the floor. When she thumbed the cut on his cheek, he thought he might die. “What the hell were you doing?”
On the TV, her nineteen-year-old self asked a similar question and he saw her body tense as her head whipped over; but before she turned, her face looked like she had seen a ghost.
“Were you—”
“No,” he said, cutting her off. “I wasn’t.”
She sighed and dropped onto the sofa, crossing her legs and folding her arms. “If you’re going to drink on my couch, I’d rather you didn’t get into a wrestling match with my glassware.”
“What about you? Are you as delicate as your glassware?”
Donni scoffed and turned away, eying the screen as the rabid “wolf” slavered after her.
Slowly, keeping his touch light, Rafe ran the back of his knuckles up her hip. “When do I get to fuck you?”
“Rafe,” she said bitingly.
“I want to know. I’ve been thinking about it every night since I came back.”
“Oh my God.” She jerked her shoulder away, causing her robe to slide down. “You keep finding new ways to make this more difficult.”
