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“Shut your mouth, Breanna is a fucking angel,” he growls.
“And so was Lucifer,” I mutter under my breath. There’s no point in arguing. I won’t win. “I would love to stay and chat but I have somewhere I need to be,” I tell them.
“I hope that place is a fucking shower,” Dad says, running his eyes up and down my body. I look down at myself. I’m covered in blood and small bits of flesh. Fucking hell. Dad shakes his head, his tone resigned when he adds, “This needs to stop, Dominic. You either need to find some control or I’ll find it for you. This path, it’s too fucking dangerous, and I’m not watching your mother’s heart break when you bury yourself in a hole so deep not even we can dig you out of it.”
“I know.” I’m telling him what he wants to hear. Although, at the mention of my mum, a bit of guilt creeps in. I don’t want to see her heart fucking break either. Especially if it’s my doing.
“What do you think she’d say if she saw this? Lucy?”
“I’d hope she’d fucking run like she should have already,” I admit.
“If she hasn’t run yet, she’s not going to. Even if she saw this, she’d still stay. But at what cost, Dom?” Dad asks.
I think about what it would cost Lucy if she stayed with me, knowing that this is the real me. Would that light she has—the one that draws me to her like a moth to the flame—start to dim before it’s finally extinguished? Would she be able to cope… mentally?
She’s already haunted by nightmares, and as much as I like to think it’s me she’s truly afraid of, I don’t know if that’s what I want anymore. I want her to come to me when she’s scared. I want her to know that I’m the guy who will slay her fucking demons. Not cause them.
“I’ll sort my shit out. Don’t worry,” I tell Dad.
He laughs. “I fucking hope you have kids one day, Dominic, so you understand that worrying about them ain’t a fucking choice.”
I screw up my face. “The world does not need any more McKinleys in it.” Then I gesture a thumb behind me. “I’m hitting the shower.”
The thought of me fathering a child is laughable. I can’t even sort my own shit out, so how the fuck am I meant to be responsible for someone else’s? I make it a point to remember to check in with Lucy about her birth control. I know she takes the pill. I’ve seen her swallow it enough times. But, then again, the idea of Lucy knocked up with my child, tied to me forever, isn’t all that unappealing.
I head into the house and straight for the bathroom that’s located on the ground floor. I’ve kept a few changes of clothes here and some towels for this exact reason. Everything I’m wearing will have to be burnt. I can’t have this kind of evidence just lying around for anyone to find.
* * *
The momentI step into Lucy’s apartment, the tension leaves my body. I inhale her scent. It’s the first thing I smell when I walk into her room. Something about being close to her is soothing. I toe off my shoes and bend to remove my socks. I want to climb into bed with her, wrap my arms around her waist, and sleep.
I don’t do that, though. Instead I sit on the chair that faces the room and I watch her chest rise and fall. Her lips are slightly parted, her eyes fluttering behind her closed lids.
What are you dreaming about, Little Bee?
I lean forward on my elbows. I’m fucking tired. Drained. If I climb into her bed right now, I’d wake her, probably scare the fuck out of her too. I don’t want to disturb her sleep. So I lean back, rest my head against the chair, and close my eyes.
“Dom?” Lucy’s voice is quiet, soft.
My eyes spring open and connect with hers. She’s sitting upright in bed. “What’s wrong?” I ask her.
Her eyebrows draw down. “What are you doing here? Where’ve you been?”
“I went out to the farm.”
“Oh… Why are you just sitting there?”
“I like watching you sleep,” I tell her.
“I like it better when you sleep with me,” she says.
So I stand and pull my shirt over my head before I undo my jeans and slide them down my legs.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Dominic stands at the end of my bed in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. The light from the bathroom is just enough that I can make out the hard ridges of his body. A body I want warming my bed.
I pull the blankets back. “Get in,” I tell him.
