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July 7 - July 12, 2025
… I’m still lost, but we’ll come back to that later. DON’T LET BARBARA SENSE YOUR FEAR. It makes her more aggressive.
“What the hell …? Doc … Doc …” Fionn’s rushing footfalls draw to a halt just behind me. “No, Rose,” he says, his voice desperate. “She’s drawn to sound.” I pivot to face him and roll my eyes. “Doc, you make her sound like a fucking velociraptor—” “Duck!”
“It wasn’t really by choice. But I’d take a raccoon to the face for you any day, Rose Evans.”
“So cute yet so murdery,” I say, stuffing the gloves in my back pocket. “I think we’re kindred spirits, Barbara.”
“You just never know who you might be dealing with, that’s all. Outsiders can cause trouble.” “No more so than ‘insiders.’ Isn’t that right?” I know Fionn well enough to know that I’ve never heard him sound like this. The words are simple, direct. They’re delivered with coolness, an eerie sense of calm. But beneath them is an undercurrent. A lethality. A warning to stay away. Or else.
What if I’m tearing his sanctuary apart?
It isn’t until later that evening, when I’m lying in bed and staring into the dark, that I realize something. He never answered my question. I don’t know if he’s really okay.
“I was at Sandra’s, for a bit. But I got bored. One can only work on a sex swing for so long, I guess,” she replies with a shrug. “How … How did you get here?” “Larry.” An irrational spike of anger hits my chest like a lightning strike. “Who the fuck is Larry?” Her head tilts. “Chill, Doc. You’re touchier than a Risley juggler with athlete’s foot.”
“You hurtle yourself though a metal cage on a death machine and you subsist on a diet of waffles and sugar. I can’t say I trust your self-preservation instincts.”
“Fine. But I’ll take a bag of Skittles too, please.” “I don’t think they have Skittles.” “Trust me, they do.” Though I roll my eyes, we both know I won’t deny her.
“This is great, Doc. Thanks for bringing me here.” I frown. “I didn’t. I’ve asked you to leave. Multiple times.” “I thought we were friends,” she says with a sarcastic pout,
“Get the fuck away from her,” I snarl as I shove Bill with both hands. He stumbles into another man on the sidelines of the skirmish. By the time he rights himself and pivots in my direction, I’ve put myself between the fight and Rose.
And all I want is to tear his fucking flesh off for hurting her. I want to punish him. I want to punish myself. Because I never should have turned my back on her. The moment she showed up, I should have insisted we leave.
God, I want to kiss her. I want to feel the heat of her lips against mine. Would she want that? Would she melt against me if she did? Or would the tension I feel between us snap and release something feral inside her? Inside me?
What are you doing? She’s your fucking patient. And you’re the most dangerous man here.
You are living a lie, she seems to say as her eyes stay fixed to mine. And if you hurt her, I’ll kill you.
Okay, so she’s definitely ready to kill me.
“Got anything to do with the little banshee?” “Her name is Rose, you fucking asshole,” I hiss as I turn on him. Though I step right into his space, he doesn’t budge. He just smiles at me like this is all a fucking game, one that he’s winning. “Another yes, then. What happened?” “Do you remember that time about ten seconds ago when I told you it was none of your business? It’s still none of your fucking business.”
“I’m her doctor, for one thing.” “Forbidden. I like it. Makes it ten times hotter.”
“You’re a dumbass, but you’re a good man. You deserve to have fun too. And I like the little banshee.”
“I’m sure you will. Drive safe, Shitflicker.” “Listen here, ya little banshee—” “Rowan,” Sloane hisses as she wallops him in the stomach with her good arm. My grin begs to ignite. “She beat me with her crutch, Blackbird.” “And then you ate three helpings of her waffles this morning and single-handedly drained her maple syrup supply. I think you’ll survive, pretty boy.”
“I needed the calories. I had a busy night. Playing sports.”
“Come on, love. We’ve got a long drive ahead. Rose, it was good meeting you. Keep my little brother safe with that crutch, all right?”
Fionn steps around me, laying a hand on my arm to ensure I don’t wobble on my crutches as he passes close to me.
But when I meet Sloane’s eyes, I know she saw it. There’s a spark in her bloodshot gaze. A little dimple peeks out at me next to her faint smile.
“Except for right now. With all due respect, Dr. Kane,” I say as I fold one hand behind his head, “shut the fuck up and eat my pussy.”
“I trust you, Fionn.” I search her face. There’s no lie in her words.
“God, yes. But what if you couldn’t find me?” My strokes slow. I hold her gaze. The urge to kiss her steals my breath. It takes every last thread of my restraint not to do it, and it leaves nothing else behind. Maybe she won’t see that every barrier I try to keep up has crumbled, if only for a heartbeat, when I say, “I will always find you, Rose.”
“That’s what makes it fun.” “I said it before. Who are you?” “And I told you before, I was returning the favor. That’s what friends are for.” “I think there’s a bad man in this good doctor,” I tease. “And I like him.”
“Doesn’t usually work out so well to disregard her direct messages.” “You named your deck Gransie?” “No. It was my grandmother’s deck. Gran died on it. Literally. Boom.” I clap my hands and Fionn startles. “Smack down on the deck, God rest her soul. Now she’s like … attached to it.”
“Just because you finger fucked me on a plane doesn’t mean I want to get married, Dr. Kane,” I say as two women exit the elevator arm in arm. “You tell him, badass bitch,” one of them says as the other gives me a high five when they pass by.
back of his neck as he says, “The thing at the Blood Brothers barn. I snapped. I fucked that guy up.” “Yeah.” I try not to smile, though I quickly fail. “You did. That was pretty hot.”
“I might not be a monster like my father, Rose,” he says. “But I’ve done things I shouldn’t be proud of. And I’m not like you.”
“It’s okay to love your darkness and still love yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a whole one.”
I rest my head on his chest, his skin smooth and warm. His heart drums a melody into my ear. I’ve touched him before, of course. Run my hands over his muscle and bone. But this time feels different. It feels like home.
“Goodnight, Mayhem.” “That’s not a nickname, is it?” “I filed an exception. Didn’t you get it?” I smile in the dark. And then I fall asleep.
“Yeah. You’re definitely not. You’ve been stickered. You’re part of the sticker-bitch crew now. Count yourself lucky she didn’t put them on your tits.”
Rowan motherfucking Kane just broke up with Sloane, that fucking piece of shit. I’m gonna kill him. Man-guy?! Are you fucking for real? I’m going to knife that fucker in the balls. You take the balls, I’ll go for the throat. Sloane will want the eyes. Good. I hate the eyes.
“And he’s got you,” I say, and Fionn turns to look at me. “I guess it makes sense now.” “What does?” “Why you never embraced the darkness inside you,” I reply, giving him a faint smile. “They expected you to rise above it. To be the man they couldn’t be.”
When I look down the length of my body, it’s pure predator staring back at me. Fionn’s eyes darken. He growls against my pussy, a shock of pleasure. And then he catapults me into oblivion. Fionn raises on his knees. He takes me with him, never breaking his mouth away. My legs are braced over his shoulders as he raises my ass off the bed. The sounds he makes are wild, animalistic. He fucking devours me. I don’t just moan. I don’t just come. I scream his name and split apart.
“Part of me doesn’t want to go home,” I confess into the dark. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.”
But as a close my eyes, I realize, I’m not sure which home I mean anymore. I’m not sure where I belong.
I have to get the fuck out of here. If he’s intent on revenge, I have to lead him away from Fionn. It’s me he’s after, and I need to give Matt a new trail to follow.
It feels like he’s prying apart my bones and cracking open my heart.
“Is that … is that Barbara?” “Umm, yeah,” Rose says through a pinched smile. She blushes when I raise my brows in a wordless question. “When I left Hartford, I drove past your clinic and saw her trying to break in. She fell from the vent by the roof. She hurt her paw. I couldn’t just leave her to fend for herself.” “So you took her …?” “Pretty much.” “A wild, rabid raccoon.” Barbara hisses, but Rose doesn’t seem to take that as proof of my point. “She’s not rabid. She’s pretty talented, actually. Cheryl’s been training her with the poodles. She had her debut show last week.”
“Give a man a shit ton of drugs and the promise of ass fucking, and he’ll do anything. Even knit doilies.”
“Have you ever heard of Giulia Tofana?” she asks. I shake my head when I open my eyes and meet her unwavering stare. “She was an Italian woman in the seventeenth century. She made a poison from arsenic and belladonna. As the story goes, she disguised it as face cream, so all a woman would have to do is come to her asking for Aqua Tofana. Many of those women were just like Lucy. And I thought I could be just like Giulia. For a while, I guess I was. But sometimes …” she says, turning her gaze from mine, her eyes glassy as they fix to the horizon, “sometimes you fuck up. You make a mistake. And
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I know the kinds of pain she’s felt. I’ve endured similar suffering, the kind that scars you in a way that never fully heals. But, somehow, it’s worse being powerless to take those wounds from Rose than it is living them myself.
No one ever asked me for help the way she did that first time we met. And I realize now, as she steps into the motor home and turns off the lights, that no one has thanked me for it either. Not until Rose.
“I’ve never been fucked in the ass while eating cotton candy before. This is like every circus girl’s dream.”
