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And a Devil’s Night, so long ago, when a boy who used to be me hunted a girl who might be like Rika in a place that just may be that very same dark hotel out the window right now. But unlike tonight, he didn’t stop. He did something he shouldn’t have done.
“I never make mistakes,” I replied. “I’m either right or I’m learning. Jaku niku kyo shoku.” I recited one of the many Japanese sayings he’d spouted over the course of my life. The weak are meat, the strong eat.
“But I’ll pay for The Pope,” I clarified. “Instead, my wedding present… will be you.”
He was like a puzzle, giving the impression that there were so many things he wanted to say, but he struggled to get his words out. And then…every once in a while in that confessional, he showed himself. His real self. The monster who my brother said everyone had inside of them.
His presence—the anticipation—was a weight on my chest. God, he was beautiful.
“Do you feel that?” he whispered. “What?” His long arms blanketed mine, my hands resting inside his. “You fit me like a shirt. It’s a perfect mold.”
“What’d I tell you? There’s pawns and rooks and knights and bishops, but only one queen.” He smiled playfully. “We’re a pair, Nik. Everyone else comes and goes, but you never escape blood. Blood is forever.”
Every animal bites when it’s provoked.
“The devil I know is better than the devil I don’t, okay?”
“Keep looking at me like that,” Kai spoke up, “and we’re going to have problems.”
Who was really in control of whom? We were both fucked.
“Sometimes when everything and everyone around me is hard to face, I look up.” He pinched his eyebrows together, looking like he didn’t understand, and I tilted my head back, looking up at the ceiling. Slowly, he did the same, following my gaze. The steam billowed in the air above us, parting here and there to show the white granite ceiling of the shower. Particles of crystal in the rock glittered in the dim light, and for a moment, my brain was floating among the mist. Light as a feather, soaring on the clouds. “Changing your view…” I trailed off. “It helps. Right?”
“Fuck me,” I breathed out. “Chase me, steal me, and fuck me. Hide me, I don’t care.”
“Hold my eyes,” he said softly. “Just keep looking at me.” I did. I just dived and surrendered and fell. The confessional. We were back in the confessional. We were younger, and it was no one but us. Tucked away, safe. I was safe.
“So, go slow with me then,” I whispered.
Anger was a straight line. It had a target.
“But you…” I buried my nose in her neck, smelling something heady and fragrant. “You make me feel driven. You make me hungry and on fire and wanting to slow down time instead of wanting to rush through it. It’s you I look for when I walk in the doors in the morning. Not her. You.”
This is what I wanted. What I always wanted, since the first time I’d seen her. Someone who knew me and wanted to dive with me.
“I’m scared,” I whispered. “I’m scared of you even with your mask off.” Because of everything you make me feel.
The less you know, the more you fear, so go learn more.
“Well, good. Happy to hear it, because I’m the only man whose attention you should be trying to get, and baby, you got it years ago while wearing another man’s clothes.” He kissed my temple, his hot breath sending chills down my spine. “So, you can imagine how fucking beautiful you are to me right now wearing mine.”
Territorial is fine when it’s in the bedroom. It’s not fine when it keeps someone you’re supposed to love from living a life.
“It’s part of our story, and I don’t want to change it. I like our story.”
“It was always for life, kid.”
