Page 21 of Jagger's Remorse
"Jesus Christ."
"He can't help either of us." I lie back on his bed, arching slightly. "So what's it going to be? Do we pretend this isn't happening? Or do we admit we're both fucked up enough to want it?"
He's on me before I finish. Different this time. Slower.
Like he's trying to memorize me.
His hands trace my scars, and I tell him the lies about each one.
But then he finds the bullet scar near my heart. Kisses it soft enough to break me.
"Who?" He asks against my skin.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes."
"Someone who thought I was my father's weakness." Truth, twisted. "They were wrong."
"I would have killed them."
"I did."
He looks up at that. Sees something in my face that makes him pull back. "How old were you?"
"Nineteen."
"Christ."
"Wrong deity again." I pull him back down. "Less talking. More showing me what five years of twisted obsession feels like."
But he doesn't move. Just stares at me like I'm a puzzle missing pieces. "What happened to you?"
"You did." I trace the scar through his eyebrow. "Everything I am started with you."
"That's not?—"
"Youcreatedme, Jagger. That night in my father's office. You looked at a nineteen-year-old girl and decided she was worth more alive than dead." I wrap my legs around him. "Now deal with the consequences."
This time, when he kisses me, it's desperate.
Like he's trying to find the girl I was in the woman I've become.
She's not there.
I killed her myself, slowly, over the years of training.
But I let him look. Let him map my body like it might hold answers.
His hands are needy now, worship where there was possession before.
It's almost enough to make me regret what's coming. Almost.
A knock interrupts us. "Food," someone calls through the door. Jagger pulls away, adjusts himself. "Leave it outside."
"Squirrel says to bring the girl. Wants to see her eat."
Power play. Making sure I'm not too comfortable.
