Page 99 of Boy of Ruin
If I want this to be real—and I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything in in my life—we have to deal with the dark, too.
“You know what happened to me.”
She shakes her head. “Jeremiah—”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m fucking talking.” It feels good to say that. To put her back in her place. I gave her the illusion of power these few weeks, and I love her to death, but she can’t just treat me and talk to me however the fuck she wants. She can’t just let me fuck her, then go back to pining after him.
That’s not how things are going to go here.
I squeeze my fingers together, entwined through one another, trying to stop the fucking tremor. I forgot this was a side effect of alcohol. Another reason I hate to drink. I want my mind sharp, I need to know who the fuck wants to kill me at any given time, but right now, I just want my hand to stop shaking before I can get the story out myself.
She glares at me, stepping closer. I wonder if she wants to slap me. I kind of hope she does. I’d love to fucking fight her right now.
I have to look up at her, as close as she is. I can smell her, too. Lavender and sweat from when we fucked. Her arms are still crossed, and I want to fucking pin her down and fuck her again until she screams my name.
But I resist.
I want her to choose me in every way, and I want her to know why she’s doing it. Because she loves me, and because Lucifer Malikov isn’t shit.
“When I was in that cage, I only ever saw three people. Three real people,” I clarify, because I saw dozens that only existed in my mind. Depending on how long I’d been in there, I could see twelve in a single fucking day.
I see her swallow again.
She doesn’t reach for me, although she could touch me, if she wanted.
I wonder if after she hears this, she’ll hate me. She’ll think I’m too fucked up. Too wrong. She’ll understand just how much of a sociopath I really am.
I don’t care.
If she loves me even just a fraction as much as I love her, she’ll accept this part of me. After all, I accept all the ways she’s been a little fucking whore while I’ve waited for her.
“Three people, one was my foster dad.” Even saying those last two words causes my ears to ring, anger coiling in my gut as I think of him. Of how he tried to erase Sid’s memory from my mind, from the first day I woke up in his fucking office. Telling me I didn’t have that sister anymore. “One was another sister of mine.”
I see Sid’s eyes narrow, jealousy in her gaze, in the way her jaw tightens.
I offer her a small smile. “Don’t worry, baby. I didn’t fuck her like I just fucked you,” I add, and she shifts on her feet in front of me, clearly uncomfortable. It’s kind of a lie. I did fuck her. But definitely not like what I did with Sid, although there was blood, then, too. “But you know the third person that came to see me?”
I snake an arm out this time, unable to hold back from touching her. I pull her close, my forearm against her back, my fingers digging into her waist, slipping under her shirt.
Her breath catches as she drops her arms, my head level with her navel. With my name, just under her shirt. I stare up at her, and one of her hands comes to my hair. She runs her fingers through it. It feels so good, I almost don’t want to tell her.
But then I imagine all the ways she did this with him, and my fingers dig a little deeper into her skin.
“The father of your child,” I tell her, glancing at her tummy.
She tenses, her fingers stilling in my hair.
“I wish it was mine,” I tell her truthfully, her entire body rigid. It’s the truth. I do. And one day, we’ll have our own. “But another truth? I don’t care that it isn’t. It’s you I want. It’s always been you.”
I smile at her, dip my head, nudge her shirt up with my nose, press my mouth to her stomach, just above her belly button, my eyes going to my name in her skin, the blood dried and smeared, as if she didn’t want to clean it off.
She shivers in my arms, her fingers tightening in my hair, one hand still by her side.
“But you need to know what he did.”
I kiss her again, feel her stiffen.
“Yeah,” I whisper against her skin, tilting my head up to look at her. “Lucifer came when I got this.” I lift my free hand up, watch her eyes trail to the marks on my inner forearm, vertical lines that are white scars now. I shake my head. “No, baby. He didn’t do that.”
