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I spread my fingers over the keys. Every time, I think I’m going to forget it. I couldn’t tell you how it starts, or even hum it properly. But the body remembers much more than the brain.
I see her slim frame rocking with the motion of the music, her gray eyes closed. I can smell the fresh lilacs she kept in a vase by the window. When I open my own eyes, the room is darker than she kept it. The oak trees have grown thicker and taller since then, crowding the window. There’s no vase anymore, no fresh flowers.
Nero is standing in the doorway—tall, slim, black hair falling over one eye, face as beautiful and cruel as an avenging angel.
“You know I only want to help.” “You’d help yourself to the shirt off my back, you devil.”
I see the dull gleam of metal inside Jack’s suit jacket. A Ruger LC9 in the inside pocket, hanging over the back of his chair, instead of securely attached to his body. What a fucking amateur.
“If you weren’t married to him—” “You’d what? Get your teeth kicked in like last time?” I snort.
“If you EVER talk to my wife like that again, I’ll empty that clip in your chest.”
I can feel that his body is still burning and shaking, every muscle throbbing with the effort of containing the emotion inside of him.
Oh my god I want to be fucked. I want it so bad I feel like I could be willing to die after, if I could only get what I need for five straight minutes.
I am at peak happiness. I don’t just want this. I fucking need it.
“That was . . .” What, exactly? Insane? Shocking? Confusing? Breathtaking? Unforgettable? “I know,” Callum says.
There’s a long pause, and then I can’t help asking, “Have you ever done that before?” Another long pause, in which I think he won’t answer. Then, finally, he says, “Not like that.” Dear lord. I’m a pretty opinionated girl. I thought I knew what I liked and what I didn’t like. But I might have just discovered a whole new category . . .
I never imagined it could feel so good that it takes me over, body and brain. The sheer, physical pleasure is insanely intense. Bizarrely stronger than what I’m used to.
Aida attracts me in a way I can’t understand. It’s as if every one of her features was formed with some kind of secret code designed to burrow into my brain.
She loves passion of any kind. She loves to be angry, stubborn, joyful, or mischievous. The only thing she doesn’t like is a lack of feeling. Unfortunately, that’s what I am. Cold. Restrained. Lacking in pleasure. Until I’m around her. Then my senses crank up to a feverish degree. I smell and taste and see more acutely. It can almost be too much. It scares me, how I lose control around her.
Yet, I don’t want it to stop. I can’t imagine going back to dull indifference. Aida is the doorway into another world. I want to stay on her side forever. Jesus, what am I saying? I’ve never had these thoughts before, let alone allowed them to form into words.
I’ve got to calm down and keep my head on straight. That resolution lasts about five seconds, until I press my nose against her hair and inhale that wild scent of hers, like sunshine and sea salt, dark coffee, pepper, and just a hint of honeyed sweetness. Then I feel that jolt again, that adrenaline shot, that switches off the governors on every one of my impulses.
She’s glowing like a bronzed goddess in the watery light coming in through the shutters. She doesn’t notice or care that she’s completely naked.
My little Aida, not embarrassed by nudity, but blushing from a direct question on the topic of what she wants.
When I socialize, it’s at events where I need to network. I can’t remember the last time I ran an errand or did anything for entertainment.” Aida sits quietly for a minute. Far longer than she usually stays quiet. Then she says, “That’s sad.”
“I like being busy. It’s not sad, it’s purposeful.” “What’s the point, though?” she says. “If you’re not having any fun along the way.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to always be the smallest dog in the fight. I have to attack first, and hardest. I never had much softness in me. I never have, and I never could.” I can’t imagine her soft. It would ruin everything about her.
Real power isn’t working the system. It’s running the system. Building it yourself, even.”
“I don’t like how you use the past tense to refer to our glory days,”
“Either way, it’s too late,” I growl. “You’re mine. And whatever he wants as a consolation prize, he’s not getting it.”
“I want us to be partners,” she says. “Not just . . . unwilling roommates.” “I want that, too,” I tell her.
It’s a web, all interconnected, all reliant on the smooth operation of the individual parts.”
“I didn’t do it to hurt you.” “But you did hurt me. You’re still hurting me. You’re killing me every day.”
some of the would-be upper crust made me want to puncture my own eardrums just to avoid the sound of their idiocy.
He called me a goddess, an angel, the only real person on earth. It was weird, because I’m no angel.
I felt like Oliver didn’t really know me at all. Like he just loved some exaggerated version of me in his mind.
“There’s only one name you should be afraid of in this city. Whatever Zajac does to you, I’ll do ten times worse. If he shoots you in the face, I’ll drag your screaming soul back from hell just to kill you again.”
“Next time you want to shoot at somebody, either improve your aim or stay home.”
He definitely taught me a few things. The number one thing he taught me is never to fight when you can negotiate instead. Because the outcome of a fight is never certain.
“It just never felt right,” I say. “It was like putting a shoe on the wrong foot. Right away it was awkward, and the longer it went on, the worse it got.”
Opposites have a kind of symmetry. Fire and ice. Stern and playful. Impulsive and restrained. In a way, they belong together.
there was no emotion on my side, just indifference. You need push and pull to feel love. Or hate.
But you don’t know that, do you, Mr. Griffin? Because you haven’t even paid me the compliment of curiosity.”
You’re the person who eats the bacon, thinking you’re better than the man who butchered it.”
I’ve heard that being stabbed is more painful than being shot.
I don’t want to make this a cultural critique, but you Irish could learn to sip a drink once in a while. Not everything is a shot.”
It’s crazy and hectic and we could have been killed. But I’ve never felt more alive. The freezing water. The night air. The stars overhead. The light reflected in Aida’s gray eyes. I feel it all with painful acuity. It’s absolutely fucking beautiful.
“You’re incredible,” I tell her. “Also, completely insane.
“I would never abandon you,”
I promise her. “I’ll always find you, Aida.”
I want you to come work with me. Every day. Once you graduate, I mean.” My heart gives a funny little flutter. That’s crazy. A couple of weeks ago, I hardly thought Callum and I could share a room without murdering each other.
When Cal’s not driving me into a rage, he steadies me. I feel safe around him.
A husband’s achievement belongs to the wife, and vice versa.”
“You look beautiful in everything. I’m not going to boss you around about it.”
“But what if I kind of like it when you boss me around?”
