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It’s mutual, baby girl. Believe me, it’s mutual.
My eyelids grow heavy. With Star here, when I’m beating back a flood of memories like the birds in that Hitchcock movie my dad once made me watch with him, I feel unhinged. Gone is the posturing. Gone is my anger toward her. Gone is my frustration at school.
In this moment, as the music weaves a spell around us, nothing matters. I crook my finger at her and command in a lazy voice, “Come here.”
She points a finger at her chest, her brows raised high. “Who me?” she squeaks out, sounding winded. Goose bumps skitter down her arms.
I chuckle, soft and low. “Yeah, you.”
I lean over, reach around the table, and grab the backpack off her lap. She puts up a nominal fight, but eventually releases the bag and lets it fall to the ground.
I grasp her wrist—I love manhandling her—and gently tug her onto my lap. It’s like the crazy music broke the fourth wall inside me. My hard control is gone. I’m relaxed, my face smoothed out, my movements mellow.
She comes to me.
Hmm, I should’ve been gentle with her before because she has no defenses against the gentle me. I can’t describe what it’s like to have her willingly come to me, to let me wrap my arms around her. Her warm skin, combined with the soft weight of her body in the tight band of my arms, is a blessing on a day like today.
I lean in and kiss her languidly, sinking my questing tongue into her mouth, tasting her. This time, I’m not proving a point or exacting a punishment. I’m just exploring.
I break our kiss only long enough to drag off my shirt. Her eyes drop and my heart stops. She lets out a loud yelp. My men are used to my chest. They never react to the gashes crisscrossing my chest.
My chest twists sharply as I watch the realization of what she’s looking at wash over her.
She peers closer…
“Whipping marks,” she breathes out.
That’s right.
As if speaking to herself, she murmurs, “Some clans whip their inductees on their backs, but the Popescus only use a blood pact with a simple nick to the thumb. These look like bullwhip marks, like someone went after you without mercy...”
The more she speaks, the more I stiffen beneath her.
She lifts a finger to my chest.
I flinch, bracing myself.
Undeterred, she presses her index finger to the top of one particularly long, thick scar and slowly traces it to its end.
Drilling into her with my eyes, I answer her unspoken question. “My father.”
She gulps. “Your father. Yourdeadfather.”
“Yes, my brilliant, broken, dead father.”
Her eyes redden, but she struggles to keep the tears from falling.
“I don’t tolerate pity.”
“I don’t pity you,” she cries out. “You know I don’t.” Her bottom lip trembles. Tears fall. “But I can’t help feeling sad. It’s not right. It’s not—” She pauses and gulps. “Right.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” I explain.
Her lips twist into a grimace. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Itdoesmatter,” I reply harshly.
I hate her tears, but I hate the truth even more. I don’t want her weeping for the boy who had to deal with an insane father, who had to deal with violence, but the worse still—who tried to save his father but lost him anyway. “It’s the only thing that makes it bearable. Don’t cry.”
