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“New, like… the ingrown hair I found on my knee?” I look down at my legs, though they’re covered in golden silk. “Or like that I think my period is due soon? I’m beginning to cramp.”
He steers me into a massive dining room that’s been set up more intimately than it was for my breakfast, with candlelight instead of electricity, and a long table bursting with yellow roses and glittering silverware. “Do you think you make yourself less desirable to me when you speak of body hair and monthly cycles?”
Instead of escorting me to my chair, he changes our grip from arm-to-arm, taking my hand in his. He allows me to keep walking, though I only get three steps before our reach ends, then he pulls me back and crushes me to his chest.
Music plays from somewhere far away, so when the soft melody touches my ears, I realize…we’re dancing.
“I’d like to see your tiny, imperfect, ingrown hair.” He pulls me impossibly closer and buries his nose against the side of my neck. “I want to see your scars, Christabelle. Your sunspots. Your pimples.” He places his palm at the small of my back and slowly dips me backward until my hair dangles and almost touches the floor. “I want to rub your belly when you’re crying of period cramps, and feed you chocolate until you’re crying of weight gain.”
I snicker and hold on as he pulls me back up. “I don’t eat it anyway. Besides, you don’t make life with you sound appealing. No woman wants to gorge on chocolate until she cries.”
“Liar.” He slides the tips of his fingers along my collarbone and down to trace the V of my dress.
It’s sexual. Forward. And at the same time, a man simply exploring. Cataloguing. Wondering.
“What did you discover during your research today?” He licks his lips and studies me from beneath long, dark lashes. “I know you worked on our project.”
“What makes you think this isourproject?” I reach around and grab his hand, inching it higher when he attempts to move south. “And what makes you think I would tell you my findings if I had any?”
“Because you’re going to publish them anyway.” He tightens his hand on my back, so when I look tomorrow, I might find finger-shaped bruises, a reminder he touched. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t share what you’ve discovered in the meantime.”
“Maybe I want your secrets to be a surprise, even for you.”
I allow him to lead me.When in Rome,and all that.I loosen my legs and relax my smile. And I know exactly the moment he notices my submission, because he spins us around and rests the tip of his nose by my temple.
“I wasn’t supposed to like you,” he whispers near my ear, his breath on my skin eliciting goosebumps all the way to my toes and up to the very base of my skull. “I wanted to fucking destroy you, Christabelle.”
“What do you consider this?” I pull back to look around the opulent room. “This is a beautiful home, Felix. You feed me and clothe me. You even look at me like I matter. But a cell is still a cell.”
“You do matter.” He pinches my chin between his finger and thumb, dragging me closer until I’m forced to stand on my toes. “That’s why none of this is simple anymore. Last time I’m asking: what did you discover today?”
I exhale an exasperated sigh. I knew he wouldn’t give up on his questions easily. “I’ve been scouring oldCannon Dailyeditions. Not an easy feat, since there are three hundred and sixty-five a year, and I’m looking back more than thirty years.”
“Lots of reading,” he nods.
The music accompanying our slow dance is a simple tinkling of a piano that builds in tempo, then softens again. It’s like gentle waves in a mostly calm sea; it grows and grows, dragging us along with the tide, then it releases us again, only to wind back to the start and repeat.
“Why are you searching old papers?” He reaches up with a gentle hand and touches a lock of hair that dangles on my shoulder. “It’s not like we advertise our shit in the tabloids for the world to know.”
“You say that, but the city cares to know what your family is up to. You and I are not from the same world, Felix. We don’t typically travelin the same circles. But to some, the Malones are considered as much a social figure as the Cannons, or the Eriksons. So I was hoping to find out who your father was dating before your conception.”
“My father didn’tdate,” he chuckles, swapping the lock of hair for my hand. He plays with my fingers and studies their tips like he’s searching for something. “My father fucked. Multiple women, often at once. If you think you’ll find a wedding announcement or some shit?—”
“I’m looking for names attached to his. And I’m cross-referencing with women who later turned up missing. I’m looking for five women, Felix, though we both know there will be significantly more.”
“You’re likely to find twenty-five,” he affirms. He brings my hand closer and places the pad of my pointer finger between his lips. His action stuns me, but the soft movement of his tongue over my skin sends bubbles of anticipation shooting straight to my core. “Of those twenty-five, you’re hoping to guess which is mine?”
“Well…” My heart bounds, fluttering with adrenaline and nerves; though, our contact seems to draw no reaction from Felix at all, who simply continues dancing. “I figure I can place these women in a kind of timeline order. When we figure outwhenthey visited with your father, we can make a reasonable guess as to which of your brothers they may belong to. Genetics will come into play after that. The shape of their eyes. Lips. Cheekbones.”
“You think it could be so easy? Just look at them and figure it out?”
“I think, of five sons, you all share Malone characteristics, assuring anyone on the outside that you’re a united front. But you’re all different, too. You each have slightly different ears. Your noses are not the same. The shape of your eyes varies.”
“We all have green eyes and dark hair,” he counters. “Like Tim.”
“Andyouhave lips like none of the others.” I can’t help but look down at them. At the plump swells shadowed by short growth. I can’t help but notice how my body reacts to his when those lips curl up and smile at me.
“Micah’s shoulders are the broadest,” I continue. “And his cheekbones are higher than anyone else’s. Archer’s hairline is not the same as yours. And Cato…” My voice crackles on mention of the youngest. My pulse, stumbling in my chest. “He’s completely unlike the rest of you. His body is longer. Thinner.”
