Page 9 of Mara
She was death’s spirit. The very reaper to my own soul. I needed to fucking have her. It wasn’t enough to have her on that sink. Her taste was a tease—a brand in my bones to solidify the need to claim her.
Not yet…
I reminded myself, trying to shake the thoughts from my head and listen to the heartfelt babbling bullshit between the two sisters.
“So…I am just trying to help them. Alex got thrown into a bad situation, and I know they can bounce back. We all struggle with death.”
Interesting choice of words. I smirked at her, but she kept her focus on Gigi. Her hands were delicate and calloused withoutall the fake nails and bullshit that Gianna had on. Mara had the hands of a worker.
Will you struggle when you die at my hand, Little Reaper?
My body faced her directly, while standing beside Gianna, yet Mara refused to look at me. She must still be grumpy about realizing she got devoured by her sister’s boyfriend. The title bullshit still rattled me. I didn’t like people having a claim on me. I owned these pathetic people. Not the other way around.
“Do you often take on strays?” I cut them off, irritated at the way Mara wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t sign to her, and enjoyed the way she struggled to catch my words in the chaos of the yogurt shop. Her sister relayed the question through sign language, and I watched my jaw flex in the glass of the shelving behind Mara.
“Well, honest, good people deserve a second chance, and to have help when they need it. Don’t you think, Bonehead?”
I laughed out loud at her usage of that ridiculous pet name for me.
Gianna looked between us, picking up on the rage that radiated through the pores of my beautiful obsession.
“I personally love that about you, Mare. I think you are always so sweet and sensitive. I know that Alex will find their place in Wellard soon.” She turned to me, but continued to sign so her sister could follow along. “Mara works at an asylum. It’s so creepy. I swear that place gives me nightmares, hearing Mara’s war stories. I keep telling her she should be normal and go work for a hospital so she is safe.”
I smiled and pulled Gianna into a kiss, lacing my tongue around hers so she could taste her sister’s come in my mouth. She reacted to me instantly, returning the kiss until her mind told her to stop.
“I think that safety is subjective, baby girl,” I said, watching her lips swell from the kiss. “You could be safer there. Ya neverknow, the people closest to you can end up being the most dangerous.”
Mara fidgeted, reading my lips and rubbing her arm as if she felt the chill that accompanied my words.
Gigi giggled and slugged my arm. “You dork. You are supposed to be on my side, Jinxy!”
I detested it when she pouted like an infant, and rolled my shoulders to regain my composure to speak. “Of course, darling. Silly me. You really should learn your surroundings, Nirvana. I agree with Gianna.”
Gianna changed my words when she signed to her sister. Embellishing words to make it seem as if I was groveling at the woman of my dreams. I could see that Mara knew that as well, but she ignored it.
“Yeah. We all should be aware of our surroundings.”
My phone went off and I pulled away from the sisters to see it was one of my clients asking for a cover-up for the eightieth time. I swear I wanted to fucking kill this moronic woman. She came in every week for a different name to be tattooed on her body.
It was merely my professionalism that kept me from saying, ‘Dumb fuck, why don’t you stop getting permanent body modifications of whatever moron was dumb enough to fuck you that week?’
She was paying my rent at this point.
“Gotta go,” I said to Gianna, pointedly turning my back to Mara to block my words. “Occupational hell calls.”
Gianna pouted as usual. To her sister, she spoke while signing, “Sorry, Mare. He is a tattoo artist, and this crazy bitchy lady is always blowing up his phone. He has to fix her tattoo again. I swear, sometimes I wonder if he will ever propose because that woman is like his freaking wife at this point.”
Mara looked over to me, studying me from my boots to my blond hair. Without voicing her words, she began signing to her sister quickly.
Gigi. Do you really see this dude as someone who wants to settle down? He seems a bit…rough.
Letting the girls chat, I grabbed the yogurt from the table. The shit tasted like liquid freezer-burnt garbage, but it allowed me to busy myself. I shoved the spoonful of yogurt in my mouth, trying to conceal my smile.
You don’t know half of how rough I can be. But you will soon.
Those marks she got in the bathroom were the most vanilla bullshit I’d ever done.
Didn’t want to scare my Little Reaper before breaking her soul and body.
