Page 61 of Like Grim Death: Part One
My boyfriend would care and more than that, unlike anyone else who has ever been in my life, he woulddo something about it.
I open my mouth, pausing my slow tracing of his muscles and scars. I feel the flex of his body, like he’s picked up on my faltering.
Slowly, in the darkness of our room, he picks up his head and turns in my lap, cheek on the pillow, but now his pale eyes lock onto mine.
Warmth and love and hope erupt like lightning inside my chest as he stares at me, his elbows flared at an angle, one grazing my hip.
I can’t read his facial expression in the dark, but the look in his eyes… it’s like he’s swallowing me whole. Like everything I am is absorbed by him.
I press my palm flat to his back, near his shoulder blade. With my other hand, I massage my fingertips into his scalp. His hair is thick on top, buzzed around the sides, and I like the different textures.
But I know this moment is more than his damn haircut. I know I should confess. And it’s right there, on the tip of my tongue.
Someone is hurting me.
I need you.
Protect me.
I’m so sorry.
And yet… it’s Lucifer Malikov who stays me, and he isn’t even inside this house.“I don’t answer questions. Do as your told. Don’t call me if you need help. Use your fucking head.”He barely even looked at me as he snarled out the instructions. But I hear them so clearly in my mind, and I know how much he loves Mavy, and the feeling between them is very mutual. Lucifer wouldn’t tell me to do something if it wasn’t important.
So… I clench my teeth together.
“Does it bother you?” His voice is a soft caress in the darkness, but it feels more like a growl through my guilt.
I knead his muscles, his scalp, and I slowly nod as I bite my lip, anxiety nipping at me. “You know that.” Unlike everything else, it’s not a secret. “I don’t want… anyone to hurt you.” I gaze at the blackening bruises along his temple, and the worse one on his abs.
He arches a dark brow. “Why not? Don’tIhurt you?”
I roll my eyes. “That’s completely different and you know it.”
His body tenses beneath my hand, and my heart thumps faster like it always does when I feel his mood shift toward something like anger. “Do I?” The question sounds dangerous.
I keep touching him, and I feel him melt under my hands. Like I can pull him back from the abyss. Even his eyes flutter closed as the question hangs between us. I know he expects an answer despite the fact he isn’t looking at me. “Don’t you? When you… hurt me, when we’re having sex, you don’t mean anything malicious by it, right?” My face heats, my entire body growing warm, particularly the part of me his head is on. I don’t like to examine our kinks, our relationship, in too much detail. It unnerves me.
A lazy smile tips up his lips. “What if I do?” His eyes flash open, locking onto mine. “What if I get off because you’re in pain?”
“You do, but it’s still different than someone whipping you until they scar your skin. The intent behind the actions is not the same.” I chew my bottom lip when I finish because I’m not sure I’m right. Maybe I just want to be because I want to believe he cares for me more than whatever the priest feels for him.
“It doesn’t upset Father Tomas when he scars me.” His words come slowly, carefully. “And it doesn’t upset me when I put marks on you either.” He watches me, waiting for a reaction. “In fact, it turns me the fuck on, knowing you’ll always carry moments of what I did to you on your body. In your skin.” His gaze drops to my heart, completely covered with his oversized black T-shirt, but I think he’s watching how fast my chest is heaving. He lifts his eyes to mine again and I wonder if he sees the fear and lust in my gaze. My fingers are no longer caressing his skin, his scalp. Now, it’s just like holding on. “What is it youwantthe difference to be, Ella?”
The words rush out of my mouth before I can stop them, and no amount of thinking of Lucifer and his threats and my task can quiet me now. I’ve always been bewitched by Maverick Astor; no one else can banish that spell. “But what if someone hurt me? Someone who wasn’t you? What if someone else hit me? Slapped me? Wouldn’t that be different to you?”
His eyes flash, his pupils contracting, the baby blue edging them out as he stares at me. A vein along his neck ticks, cords of his throat pushing against his skin, but he is perfectly still. “If someone else hurt you,” he says carefully, “foranyreason…” He doesn’t blink as he looks at me. I get the disorienting feeling he is falling into the blackness of my brain, and it scares me, a chill haunting down my spine. “I wouldn’t kill them.” He traces his gaze over my face, like he’s memorizing me. “That would be too merciful for what Iwoulddo.”
I drop my eyes to look at my fingers in his hair. “Then that’s the difference,” I whisper.
* * *
“You’re doing so good. You’ll keep this secret. For him, won’t you? For his sake?” I flinch, agony along the backs of my thighs, but I only nod my head, because I’m good at this. Because Mavy taught me all about being submissive.
In my mind, Lucifer smiles at me, his eyes devilish.
But he wouldn’t actually kill me.
I know he wouldn’t.I know he wouldn’t.
