I wipe her down with what I brought and clean the cuts, kissing them better. I tie her hair out of her face and tuck her againstmy chest like I didn’t just fuck her until she was half-conscious against the floor of a ruined shed.
When she wakes up, she blinks up at me like I’ma dream she’s not ready to let go of.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. I can feel it. We are past obsession now.
This isn’t about the masks anymore. Or the games. Or revenge.
This is something darker.Deeper. I don’t know if it’s love. But it sure as fuck feels like home.
TWENTY-ONE
LYDIA
Iwake up sore.
Not the kind of sore that makes you regret it.
The kind that lingers like a secret, low, deep, bruised in all the right places. My thighs ache. My back is scraped. My lips feel swollen from kissing leather and moss and pain.
And my chest still burns where the blade kissed me.
A thin line just under my breast. Pink and healing already. But it’s there. Real. Permanent.
A mark.
A memory.
A signature.
His.
I don’t remember falling asleep.
One minute, I was sobbing his name, shaking from another orgasm, begging him to stop.
The next, I was curled into his chest, the damp floor beneath me, his masked breath warming the top of my head.
He hasn’t said anything.
He just held onto me.
His fingers ghost over my spine. Gentle. Reverent. So at odds with what he'd done just minutes before.
That duality messes with my head. He can fuck me like a monster, but holds me like a prayer.
Now, in the quiet gray light of morning, I sit up slowly, wincing as my muscles protest.
Paint still clings to my skin in streaks, bright orange and blue splatters across my ribs and thighs. Dirt in my hair. My tank top has been tossed somewhere during the chaos, and all I have is his jacket draped over me.
Black. Heavy. Tactical.
Still smells like him.
I pull it tight around my body and look for him.
But he’s gone.
Of course he is.