Chapter 29

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They told me mafia male leads don't have boundaries; I said sike.

Rowan

Briar's more skittish than I thought. Resting on my side in our bed, topless, fire scalding through my veins, I trace the way the lamp light caresses her.

Every slender finger.

Each freckle.

The little scar on her pinkie.

The little birth mark by her bra strap.

She is so phenomenally beautiful.

Cushioned atop the comforter.

In complete disarray.

Covering my mouth, I hide my too-pleased smile.

"Sorry," she whispers past her hands, which are clamped firmly to her blazing face.

My smile grows as I draw a shape up and down her arm. "For what?"

"I'm a tease. But I wasn't even trying to be this time. And—" She drags her fingers down against her lips, staring up at the ceiling. Eyes giant and tone hopeless, she whispers, "I really am a monster. What am I doing to you? This really is abuse. Can't I be clear and direct and stable for five minutes?"

"It would have taken longer than five minutes just to kiss you until I was satisfied, sweetheart."

Her giant gaze cuts toward me, cheeks blistering in the lamplight.

"You are allowed to change your mind."

She shivers. "I know that. But you're supposed to be at least a little upset, not…wholesome and sweet and still stupidly attractive while you smile at me like you're just happy I wanted to be with you at all, for even a moment."

"My bad. Is my sheer bliss over that very thing interrupting your existential crisis?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. It is. Almost as much the fact you are still shirtless."

"You are welcome to enjoy the macabre, even if it doesn't go farther than getting me drunk on the tickle of your fingers."

Swearing, she covers her face again and rolls away from me. The action pulls her skirt up and displays the zipper I got halfway down her back. I stare for too long at her lacy pink bra strap.

To keep myself from kissing her exposed skin, I think of entirely mundane things. Like taxes and math and lining up data in a spreadsheet, so the automatic calculations code themselves in specific colors at the push of a button…

Never mind. That's not helping.

"Why aren't you mad?" she whispers.

"How am I supposed to be mad that you feel safe enough to tell me you don't actually want sex after you pulled my shirt off and went completely dazed at the sight of me? How am I supposed to be mad when I still feel the dampness of your breath on my skin as you kissed the ugliest parts of me—"

"They're not ugly."

"Your tastes are concerning."

Fragile, she curls her legs up against her chest. "I think you're beautiful… I think it's horrible, all the pain you went through, but the idea that you endured such incredible violence and came out so…so kind." Tears tighten her voice, choking it until it's barely audible. "I think you're beautiful."

I lose utterly all my willpower and drag a fingertip down her spine. In a quick motion, I unlatch her strap, hear a shaking curse fall from her lips, and touch a kiss to her back.

"How?" She quivers. "You have absolutely no experience with women."

I hum against her warmth. "Yeah. The contraption didn't seem overly complicated, my dear." Exhaling, I murmur, "Would it make you feel better if I pretend to be angry with you?"

"Yes. I think so."

My eyes roll.

Everything in me wants her so badly it hurts, but she's…

I barely know how to describe it.

She's air. Water. I didn't realize I'd been locked in the vacuum of space without either until she stepped into my life.

Fully monotone, I say, "Briar, how dare you not couple with me? I was so looking forward to coitus."

She chokes on a laugh. "That's what you're leading with? You hardly sound upset."

"I am, clearly, livid."

"That isn't clear at all."

I kiss her back again. "Should I add a swear, perhaps? Would that help? Briar, I can't believe you—" I curse; I nip. "—told me no. After making me carry you up so many flights of stairs. How selfish. My arms are tired."

A damp laugh shakes her chest. "Sucks to suck. It's my body. I'm allowed to change my mind."

I snake my hand over her waist, rest it on her hip bone. "Don't lie to me. I own you. Every breath you take is mine. Every thought you have I allow. And I don't remember telling you to change your mind."

She swears.

"Too far?"

Her head shakes; I think she's crying harder now. Garbled, her words leave her lips wet, sticky, and a touch desperate. "No. I'm obsessed."

"As you should be." I hold her to me, secure.

A sniffle wracks her frame. "Rowan?"

"Hm?" I kiss the bow of her wing bone.

"What's wrong with me?"

When a sob shakes her, last night streams vivid behind my eyes, tightening my lungs until I can't take in air.

My grip around her tightens, as though I could possibly be strong enough to keep her from the edge of whatever emotions are rioting inside right now. "Nothing is wrong with you."

"You don't know that. You don't know anything about me." Her fingers close over top of mine, threading, trembling. "You deserve better than everyone in your life has given you."

"I don't know about that. Think of how unbearable that could have made me."

"You're wonderful."

"Please stop. I don't know how to raise an ego. It's going to suffer from generational trauma."

"I mean it, Rowan," she whispers. "You're wonderful."

My throat closes. "Are you okay, princess?"

"I'm here." A frail breath moves through her. "Are you okay?"

"Better than I can ever remember." Grasping her hand, I squeeze. "We don't have to rush anything. There's enough urgency in our lives. I just enjoy being with you, and I don't care if you think that's just because I'm susceptible to your charms, because I think you're a little susceptible to mine as well."

"You don't get it."

"Then explain it to me."

A long moment passes. "I don't know how to."

With lemon and vanilla intoxicating me, I whisper, "Then I'll wait until you do."

"I…" Her hand pulls free of mine. "I think I need a little time to sort myself out."

Before I can respond, her phone rings.

Feeling her leave my arms so she can get the burner off the nightstand is agonizing, but I take the moment to roll onto my back and cool down.

Stripped of everything that makes her so blindingly bright, she meets my eye. "I have to take this. We'll…" Her gaze traces me, getting stuck on my scars. "We'll talk again later." Answering the phone, she says, "Wait," then doesn't utter another word until she's out of the room.

All throughout a cold shower, unease niggles in the back of my mind, but I ignore the sensation. Adamantly. Until midnight.

When she still hasn't come back to bed.

?

"I need some space." Corbin's voice memo crackles through the speaker. My jaw tightens as I grip the cell to my ear. "Maybe after my face heals, I'll be back. Try to get your priorities in order in the meantime. Wishing you the best."

The audio cuts off for the fifth time, and I cover my eyes before deciding listening to the same thing over yet again won't change what was said. Locking my phone, I toss it on the coffee table and lean back to stare at the ceiling of my bedroom.

It's been two weeks since Briar walked out of my room and never came back.

Two weeks since her message of figuring things out at The Giungla for a bit also darkened my screen.

Without Aster and Corbin around to help me run the family business, you'd think I wouldn't have quite so much time to think about her.

Unfortunately, she's still everywhere I look.

Her dresses fill my closet. Her lemon and sugar scent clings to my bed sheets. Her subordinates and her snake are still next door. Still at breakfast. Still here.

Even though she isn't.

And, maybe, that's a kindness on her part.

A promise that she will come back, at some point. Even if the black-and-white ball is only a week away and I don't know whether or not she's coming back for that, she wouldn't leave her snake and friends with me forever.

It's one thing to abandon a closet full of clothes.

Another entirely to abandon her…pet.

Forcing a deep breath into my lungs, I fight to focus.

I never do field work like scoping out a mark and dragging suspects in. My parents kept me isolated, at home, with their victims pre-packaged and enough busy work to keep me from bothering to reassess my life choices.

How much space does everyone I love need?

How long do I wait before I hunt them all down and drag them back and force them to at least give me some kind of closure?

I'm so…tired.

It's hard to shake the feeling that this space is an ever expanding chasm that only I want to close.

Fluttering toward me, Bugsy trills, and I lower my gaze as he lands on my phone, peering at the outline of his reflection in the glass. He pecks at the screen. "Pretty bird," he chirps. "Bugsy, Bugsy, Bugsy. Pretty bird."

Hands clasped between my knees, I watch him and decide he possesses the final shreds of my sanity.

If anything happens to Bugsy, I'm done.

I will go insane.

"That's not yours, Bugs," I mutter as I get my phone out from under him.

He protests, jumping on top as I unlock the screen. I swipe to the last page, where Lily's Garden is. I don't know why I downloaded it. It is excessively boring. Painfully bright. Hopelessly simple.

I've made it to level three-twenty.

Bugsy tips his head into my field of view while I'm contemplating making it to level three-twenty-one.

I sigh. "I can see you're very concerned for me."

"Pretty bird."

"The empathy is spilling from your feathers."

Before Bugsy is able to provide me with some other deeply sympathetic comment, my bedroom door eases open. My heart jumps hard enough Bugsy darts for the safety of his cage—abandoning me to look straight at…Briar.

A vision of poison and starlight.

Mouth dry, my lips part, but all I can do is gape.

She's wearing a shining black leather dress held up by the thinnest straps I've ever seen. It dips low between her breasts, a cross of more slim straps obscuring nothing. The hem stops a quarter of the way down her thighs, and more yawning holes held together only by yet another set of centimeter-thick straps rest at either hip.

"Rowan," she states. "My eyes are up here."

I force words out of the back of my throat. "I do have a grade school understanding of anatomy, Briar."

She takes a step inside, closing the door behind her, and my stomach erupts with desire.

The way she…moves.

Holy f…

Stopping just out of reach, she cocks a hip. "Are you opting to get a better one?"

Finally, I meet her eyes. "Yes."

Her smile kills me—undoes my atoms, unravels my cells. Shaking her head, she folds her arms, and—truly—she shouldn't be allowed the action. "I took the liberty of clearing your schedule. We have a five-hour gap starting now."

Five entire hours. I could take a nap. I could stand up, back Briar into bed, and discover the three final square inches hidden beneath her outfit. The only thing stopping me is my current exhaustion mixed with a numb sense of moral inhibition.

Masquerading as someone who can breathe, I recline. "What in the world would you like me to do with five free hours, princess?"

Heat paints her cheeks. "Take me out on a date."

The way my heart lightens at the mere possibility she's processed whatever emotions she needed to and decided she wants to be with me cannot be healthy.

"You know how you've learned to run your meetings like a neurotic dictator with a color-coded agenda?"

I had not, no. All the same, I arch a brow. "Sure?"

"Bring some of that energy to this conversation. I'm yours for the next five hours, baby." She sits on my coffee table and crosses her legs.

Her shoes match her outfit perfectly—the love child of boots and strappy heels. Her flawless coordination does bad things to my heart. "That's not a chair." However, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think there's a single surface of mine I've not seen her on. The second the thought enters my head, I need metaphorical bleach to get it out. Yanking my attention off her, toward the several feet of perfectly good couch beside me, I murmur, "Not that it matters."

"It does. Where would you like me to sit?"

In my lap.

I squeeze my eyes closed, and this is truly, truly agony. Frick. Hoarse, I whisper, "I've missed you, Briar."

Her hand slips around my fist, loosening my fingers. Soft, she says, "I missed you, too. Are you ready to go?"

Am I ready to go murder anyone who looks at her twice?

Rising, I draw her fingertips to my lips and kiss as I meet her eyes. "Absolutely."