Chapter 27 - Delaney

27

Delaney

The house is dark and quiet. Dad’s car isn’t parked out front, so he’s probably still at the station. I picture him pacing, frantic that he hasn’t heard from Aaron.

Good , I think as I wrench open my bedroom window and hoist myself inside. He doesn’t deserve a moment of peace.

My room is still trashed. I look around at the darkened shape of the clutter, the broken pieces of my small, tired life. That’s exactly how I feel. Tired. Exhausted. It’s the kind of tired that’s beyond sleep, beyond rest. It’s bone deep and will only end with one thing: death.

I pick up a shattered photo frame and Mama’s smiling face stares up at me through the cracked glass.

“It’s okay, Mama. It will all be over soon.”

I place the frame carefully down beside my bed and then zero in on the open doorway with hardened resolve. I slip down the hall and into Dad’s room. Everything is neat and orderly, not a single thing out of place, but I don’t need to search for what I need.

The closet smells like him and it makes my stomach twist, the sharp taste of bile rising in the back of my throat. I push aside his row of neatly pressed clothes and find the gun safe.

He’s shown it to me before, many times. Whenever he felt like he was losing control of me, or I needed a reminder, he would make sure I could see as he oh-so-casually wrenched it open and placed his firearm inside. It was like he was saying, ‘ I have a gun, little girl. If you think you can fight back, think again .’

But while Dad was paying attention to the message behind showing me the safe, I was paying attention to his 4-digit lock code. I was also paying attention to his back-up piece, the one underneath our passports and boxes of spare ammo. I punch in the code and the safe gives a satisfying whir-thunk as it unlocks. In the next breath, the gun is in my palm, heavy and cold. It’s a six-shooter revolver and in his infinite wisdom, my clever, calculating, charming father keeps it loaded.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I whisper with a smile.

Headlights sweep across the room as a car growls into the drive. My heart leaps into my throat and I scramble for the hallway in a ducked run.

In the living room, I find a spot with a clear line of sight to the front door and flatten myself against the wall. I’ll wait until just after he’s stepped inside, then I’ll shoot. One bullet might not be enough to kill him, but at least he’ll go down and then I can finish him off.

The engine dies and the night goes quiet again. Is that a car door? Footsteps? The noise is hard to make out over the pounding of my heart. My hand flexes around the gun and I pull back the hammer with my thumb. My finger slides onto the trigger and, as it does, a little thrill shivers down my spine. Is this what Ares feels before he kills someone? The anticipation buzzes across my skin like water dancers on the surface of the lake. Something ripples under the surface — the hunger for violence.

“Not gonna let you do this.”

I whip around so fast that, for a moment, Ares is just a blur in the darkness. He steps forward, hands by his sides. One is bandaged up with clean, white gauze and he looks better — cleaned of Aaron’s blood, his hair wet and slicked back.

The shock subsides, replaced by anger. “What… What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“You think I’ve never seen you climb in and out of that bedroom window before?” he replies, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “You know, you’re not as smooth as you think you are.”

His eyes flick to the gun.

“You mind putting that down or at least pointing it not at me?”

My eyes track his and, yep, I’m pointing the gun right at his chest. I lower it slowly, carefully sliding my finger off the trigger.

“Sorry, I—”

Ares lunges for me and wrenches the gun from my grasp. He spins out the chamber and the bullets drop out, skittering uselessly across the living room floor.

“No, no, no! Ares! What the fuck?”

I start to drop to my knees, already reaching for the abandoned bullets, when Ares drops the gun and grabs me by the back of the neck. He forces me up and flattens me against the wall. He crowds close and he’s all there is — all I see, all I feel. He snarls through clenched teeth.

“ What the fuck ? That’s my line, Delaney. So, Rev calls me, tells me you bounced and you know what I’m thinking?”

His palm slithers around my neck. Closes around my throat.

“That little bitch is gonna get herself killed.”

His fury is palpable. But there’s something behind it, in his eyes… Fear. I suck in a breath, my throat rising against his hand. The tingling feeling from earlier is back, this time curling like a snake around my core. Tightening.

I want Ares to squeeze.

He sees it in my eyes — the want — and his face lowers, heavy brow shadowing his darkening eyes. His lips brush mine.

But he doesn’t kiss me.

“Tell me what you think you’re doing, Del.”

“I…” I swallow. His hand flexes.

“Tell. Me.”

My knees tremble. I want him to touch me, to fuck me right here against the wall. But I know he won’t, not until I tell him the truth. And then, he’ll probably be so mad he won’t ever want to touch me again.

I wet my lips, my tongue briefly, accidentally, brushing against his mouth. His body shudders against mine.

“I’m doing what I have to,” I say finally. “I know you don’t want me to, but I don’t know what else to do. This has to end, Ares. Please.”

I don’t mean the final word to come out so broken and pleading. I hate how it sounds and I flinch, tears hot behind my eyes.

“Okay.”

I blink. “Wh-what?”

Ares relaxes his hand around my throat but leaves it there, a heavy, warm reminder of him. His eyes are locked on mine in a stare that bores deep.

“We’ll end it,” he says. His eyes flick to my lips. “But first, let me taste you.”

He kisses me with an intensity that makes my brain grind to a halt. He forces his tongue between my lips and I moan against him, barely keeping up as he devours me. His hand tightens around my throat and I can’t breathe — don’t want to breathe, if it means he stops kissing me. Finally, panting heavily, he pulls away.

“Bedroom,” he orders me.

I shake my head. “It’s ruined.”

Another piercing look, cutting me open and laying me bare. His eyebrow lifts. “Does it look like I fucking care?”

He drops his hand, the skin at my throat prickling with new blood flow, and dips to scoop me around the waist. I jump, wrapping my legs around his hips. Ares grins as he positions his hand under my ass and squeezes roughly.

We start the journey out of the living and down the hall, towards my bedroom. I drape my arms over his shoulders and enjoy the moment to study him up close. Even in the moonlit shadows, his gray eyes sparkle. I trace the line of his nose and the blonde stubble on his jaw.

“You know, with one working hand, you haven’t really seen me at my best,” he says, crossing the threshold into my childhood bedroom.

With casual confidence, he balances us on one foot and uses the other to kick my torn and crooked mattress flat on the bed frame.

“Neither have you,” I reply. He grins and then we’re kissing again. I close my eyes and my stomach swoops as he tilts me backward, holding tightly until I’m laying flat on my back. The pressure of him disappears and my eyes flutter open to see him standing over me. He pulls his t-shirt off by the back of the neck, his taut muscles shifting under tattooed skin. My mouth waters. I want to trace every single one with my tongue.

He goes for his belt buckle and for half a second I doubt he can manage it with only one hand. Buckles clink, buttons pop and then his jeans are hanging loose.

I scoff and roll my eyes. “Now you’re just showing off.”

Ares grins devilishly. My eyes follow the shadowed grooves of his abdomen to the cropped tuft of hair at his open fly and the hard hint of what’s below. A shiver hits me deep and low and I swallow tightly.

God of War.

The words pop into my head unaided. I still have that book, never returned it to the library after that night. I’d stare at his page for hours. And that’s how I thought of it — his page. I imagined the Greek god coming to life, leaping from the page, weapons drawn, and charging through battle to save me.

“Del? Baby?”

I blink back to Ares. The real one. Flesh and blood, skin and bone. Not a god, but a man. And even if he didn’t slaughter my enemies to do it, he still saved me.

“What’s your real name?”

Ares cocks his head. Huffs a little laugh.

“Seriously? You know my name.”

I do. It’s somewhere in there, a vague shape of vowels and consonants, but I never thought of him as that name. He was always Ares. I don’t say anything, just stare up at him. Ares takes a moment, then with an amused tilt on his lips, he puts a knee on the mattress and lowers himself on top of me again.

“Cameron Warner. Nice to meet you.”

“Can I, um… Fuck, why is this so hard?”

Ares mouth twitches up, his eyes darting down. “Well…”

“Shut up,” I growl, bringing my hands up to cover my face. “I’m being serious.”

Ares rocks back on his heels, the pressure of his groin hard against my hips. He touches my wrist. Gently pulls my hand back from my face.

“Delaney, you’re kinda freaking me out. If you don’t want to do this…”

“No! No, I do. I just…” I swallow hard. “I want to call you Cameron. And I want you to be nice. Just for tonight. Just for right now.”

Ares frowns, considering me. Then, for some reason, he looks up and around my room. It’s like it’s the first time he’s noticing it, beyond all my torn things, my broken little life. His eyes land on something and I crane my head. It’s Mama’s photo.

Without a sound, Ares slides off. Panic slices through me. No, no, no. I’ve ruined it, I’ve fucking ruined it all. This isn’t what he wants. I’m not what he—

Ares settles onto the mattress beside me, his gauze-wrapped hand stretched over my head and out of the way. Tilting my face with the other, he trails his fingers along my jaw.

“I wish I could change it. How we met.”

My breath catches. That was not what I was expecting.

“Sure,” he continues, smiling, “it’d be weird, knowing you as the kid from up the street. But maybe we would have been friends. I could’ve helped you fix your bike when you had a flat.”

Some feeling settles in my chest. It’s weird — sad and happy at the same time, a deep longing for something I never had. I smile as his finger brushes my bottom lip and I let myself imagine it. What could have been. It’s unspoken, but I know Ares feels it too: in this fantasy, my father doesn’t exist.

“I bet Mama would have invited you over for dinner or something, since you were living all alone after your Gran left.”

Ares chuckles. “And I would’ve said no. Because I could tell you had a crush on me and it would’ve been weird.”

I laugh and smack his bicep. “Mama wouldn’t care about that,” I reply. “She’d laugh and think it was cute. Besides, you’d come for dinner eventually. You wouldn’t have been able to resist her pasta sauce. It’s the best.”

“So, what happened then?” Ares asks. “Over the years?”

The story floods to my mind far too easily. It scares me, but not enough to stop it. Ares hand leaves my chin, drifts down to my waist. His fingers make gentle patterns on the skin of my hip.

“When I’m sixteen and you’re twenty-four, I asked you to be my first kiss.”

He snorts. “That sounds problematic.”

“You said no.”

“Of course I did. I’m a gentleman.” He leans in and nips at my neck. I try to breath steadily, but it’s difficult because I can feel his hand. His thumb swoops beneath my waistband, not venturing any lower, just sliding back and forth.

“But… but you couldn’t stop thinking about me,” I say. Ares rolls my head to the side with his nose and lays kisses up and down my throat. “We lived our separate lives, but it was always there, at the back of your mind. Then this one night, when I was a little older, you saw a guy bringing me home from a date.”

Ares growls hot against my skin. “I don’t like this story anymore.”

I laugh. “It gets better. Because he was a little handsy, this no-name guy, and just as I was about to knock him the fuck out, you swooped in and threw him off me.”

“Did I kill him?”

“Oh, you tried. But I stopped you. And then… and then you held me while I cried and made me hot cocoa and we watched The Carol Burnett Show and you told me that guys are assholes and I don’t need them.”

Ares is quiet for a moment, his thumb stilling at my hip. I can feel him breathing shallowly.

“I remember,” he says, his voice rough, and I almost believe that he does.

“And then you kissed me.”

He grunts a laugh, his thumb going back to work. Back and forth. Back and forth. My skin tingles.

“Still sounds problematic.”

“Hey, this is my fantasy. Shut up.” He bites me then, right on the jugular, and my shriek turns into a laugh when he pulls back to look me in the eyes.

“It’s mine too, you know,” he says.

My heart swells and aches and longs for this fake past even harder. I take a breath.

“So then what happened next?” I ask. I put my hand on his bare chest, my fingers trembling a little, and start to trace the outline of his tattoos. Ares’ jaw clenches.

“We waited until the right time. Your mom, she’s smart, she knew something was going on.”

“But she liked you.”

“She liked me,” he repeats. “Knew I’d never hurt her little girl.”

I nod. Ares moves his hand lower, under my panties. My heart races.

“And one night, I laid you down on this very bed and I touched you.”

He twists his fingers. Moves them through the warm, wet place between my thighs. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Made you come,” he says, “made you cry it felt so fucking right. And then when I was finally inside you…”

He pushes inside. Two thick, slick fingers. I cant my hips, a gasp caught in my throat.

“…You told me you loved me.”

I gulp. “And what… what did you say?”

“I love you too, Delaney.”

I take him by the back of the neck and drag him close. His mouth against mine, his fingers inside me, we move together, steady movements becoming more and more desperate, and when I come, I do it screaming his name.

Cameron.