Midnight Blue

by L.J. Shen

She was going to stay, whether I liked it or not, and the least I could do for myself was use her until there was nothing left to take. The way Fallon had used me.

“When I finally lay my hands on you—and make no mistakes, Stardust, I will—you will be crying, all right. My name. Over. And. Over. Again.”

If he kept it up, he might succeed, and he was obsessively in love with another girl. Plus, he was a rock star. Plus, he was my boss. Plus, he was a mess. Plus, we were going to part ways in three months.

“Shouldn’t have said that, darlin’. Challenge accepted, and now you’re in trouble. The kind your innocent arse can’t talk its way out of.”

I saw her looking. And swallowing. And gaze-averting, as all good girls did before I fucked them so hard I left them in pieces.

“If you want me to believe you about not wanting me to fuck you raw, you should probably stop looking at me like that. Like you’re already mine,”

That his broken heart meant he could never love again, not in the way I deserved to be loved, and so he was nothing more than a painting. A beautiful thing that could never be of use.

“When I look at you, I see something broken that isn’t worth fixing. And you look at me like I’m a cheap thing to replace the expensive one that’s been stolen from you. See, we’re all vases. And you’re the one scattered on the floor, shattered beyond repair. So I’ll let someone else pick you up. It’s really that simple. Have fun with your temporary glue.”

For the first time in a long time, I knew I was in deep trouble. Something I couldn’t control. Because Alex Winslow was a broken vase. But I wasn’t the glue. I was the stupid cleaner who was about to try to pick up the pieces and, inevitably, get cut.

“All walled up and waiting to be defrosted. That’s how I like you.”

Life is full of secrets, and narrow-minded people, and sugar-coated, empty conversations that hold no weight. What’s real is what’s inside us. What’s important is what we feel.

“I apologize in advance.” He cocked his head to the side. “For?” “Ruining you for any other man on this planet. I’m going to fuck you, Indie. So hard you’ll think about me years from now, when you lie under your boring, missionary-loving husband. I will own every orgasm, every shiver, every wave of pleasure inside you. From here on out, it will be me. Just me. And for that, I truly am sorry.”

He’d lost his soul somewhere along the way, and I was just another piggybank he shook, trying to see if what was inside resembled what he was looking for. And at that moment, I knew I’d take it. He was going to break the pig, and I was going to let him.

She shook her head. “It’s just…different.” “You’ve only been with one guy.” The fucker.

“Jesus! Shit, oh, wow!” she exclaimed. She sounded surprised, and that made everything so much hotter, even though Jesus got the credit for all my hard work.

I decided to bend my mate a little harder, see if he could break. There was something beautiful in fucking up my own life and alienating people by choice. It gave me the illusion that I was in control. That the choice was mine.

“What do you want from me, Alex?” Everything. I want everything, and then all the things you’ve already given away to other people. I want them back, too.

“Me neither. I just want to talk.” He lowered his forehead and pressed it against mine, his breathing labored. “And maybe give you oral sex. But that’s it.”

In retrospect, Paris would be the night when my life changed forever. Indie’s, too. And Fallon’s, the most.

“Midnight Blue,” he whispered. “Illicit and elegant at the very same time.”

Bonus points: blue really was a fantastic color. Especially when it was dark and bottomless. Like my name. Like their son.

And walk away she would, because I was a fuck-up, an addict, and I’d screwed up everything with her before it even started.

This wasn’t fucking. This was something else entirely, and if I were a good man—if I were halfway decent, even—I’d stop, flip her over, drive into her from behind, and make sure to bang her head on the headboard for good measure. But I wasn’t a good man, so I let her fall in love with me in that moment, because she was the only person who took my loneliness away.

Now that Tania was gone, Stardust was my main instrument. And it saddened me, because I knew I had to break her, too.

I dreaded to think how I’d fare a week from now. Heroin? Crack? Riverdale? I’d die if I became the very thing I loathed.

I can’t believe this shit’s for real, Stardust. How can you not answer me? How can you not need me the way I need you? How is it fair that I found you, and you found me, and we both know damn well how rare what we have is, and you still let me go?

“Because I love her,” I said. There was nothing to worry about when you told the truth. The truth was factual, and facts are things you can’t change or bend to your will. “Because I love your sister and because I deserved to get my arse kicked,” I finished.

Indie couldn’t have forgotten about the first man who’d fucked her—really fucked her—the first man she’d given her heart to, the first man who’d broken it without even meaning to, and the first man who’d ruined her life. Those were too many firsts. Good and bad. Fact.