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“Feel better?” I ask him, taking a sip of my own.
“Feel like shit.”
I laugh. “Look like it, too.”
I set my glass down on his coffee table, without a coaster, because I know he hates it, and I stand in front of his chair, tilting his chin up with a finger to get a good look at his face. His hair is a sweaty mess of white-blond strands, and there’s a nice purple bruise blooming on his temple where I hit him with the pommel of his knife earlier.
“Do you think maybe it’s time for us to rip up that contract of yours and throw it in the bin?” I ask him in a light, friendly tone.
He shakes his head. “That would work out nicely for you, wouldn’t it?”
His voice is low and soft, his words a little slurred, like he’s a little bit drunk.
“Mostly it would save you a lot of embarrassment,” I reply. “Aren’t you getting sick of losing at your own game?”
“Maybe thisismy game.”
“What, getting battered and bound?” I lean down. “You like it when I’m in control, Luca?”
“You’re not in control, Lynch.” He smiles. “All that bravado—you’re clearly compensating for something. A little hurt girl trying to feel safe.” He smiles, soft and mocking. “You’ve probably never been in control.”
There’s an unpleasant feeling in my chest, like Luca has just reached his hand into my thoracic cage to squeeze my heart in his fingers. The little hurt girl he’s talking about died a long time ago; I buried her myself. I buried her somewhere deep and safe where nothing would ever reach her again.
Luca doesn’t know that, though. He’s taking shots in the dark, hoping a stray bullet will one day puncture a vital part.
“You must be very clever,” I tell him, “to have solved the mystery of my existence so easily.”
“I only needed to follow the clues you left,” Luca says, “all over your arms.”
“You’ve got a fixation on my scars, Luca. You mad you didn’t get to put them there yourself?”
“I have no interest in your destruction,” Luca lies. “There’s no joy in shattering something that’s already in pieces.”
“You’re so desperate to provoke me. It’s like youwantme to slap you around.”
He smirks. “A man can’t help his fetishes.”
I slap him across the face, then. Fairly hard—just to see if he’s bluffing. Once more, he doesn’t make a noise. You don’t take physical damage in silence like that unless there’s something inside you that’s dead or dysfunctional or broken. Luca looks up at me, and the smirk is still on his face.
“That’s all you’ve got?”
I slap him harder, on the same side of his face, a slap like the one in the fencing room, that leaves a bright red mark behind.
“You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?” I ask.
Luca doesn’t answer, but his tongue darts out to moisten his lips, which are no longer pale but flushed a rich pink. He looks like an inbred angel, a sickly cherub. Wrong and beautiful at the same time, and I find myself seized by a strange new emotion, a sort of horrified affection, like finding a monstrous thing endearing.
It’s this strange new feeling that makes me step closer and straddle his lap. It’s curiosity, too, and a trickle of reluctant desire that makes me tuck back his hair, caress his arms and reach between his legs. My eyes widen when my palm rubs against something hard.
“Oh. You’rereallyenjoying this.”
“Don’t take all the credit,” he says, voice mild, eyes on mine. “The violence isn’t anywhere near as exciting as the anticipation of the payback coming your way.”
“You’ll never catch me,” I tell him. “Don’t you get it yet? You’re not the man you think you are, Luca.” I tap the bright red handprint on his face, where I know he must be tender and sore. “You’re not the hunter, you’re the prey. You get off on being the prey.” With my other hand, I roughly rub the hard bulge between his legs. “You pathetic fucking creep. That’s what gets your dick hard. Your kink isn’t being the predator—it’s being the victim.”
I unzip his trousers and yank on his boxers. His cock springs free, and would you believe it, Luca Fletcher-Lowe is a grower, not a shower. In fact, he has a nice dick—a pretty dick even. Smooth and clean and pink, with the delicate marbling of veins, just like on his hands.
I want to touch it and I don’t at the same time, torn between disgust and curiosity. So I pull the Japanese knife tucked in my belt and run the blunt edge along the length of Luca’s dick, which twitches at the cold touch of metal.
