Eli smiles and looks closer at the photo, the scratches visible on my arms. And I look at it too, wondering if I see a little pride in Samuel’s expression, or if it’s just imagined. I haven’t noticed it before. It confuses me, because I’ve never tried to make more of Samuel than what he is. A savior, yes. A partner as well. But a monster too. Just not my monster.

“I’ll be alone when he’s gone,” I say, immediately astounded that those words just left my mouth. Why would I say that, even if it’s true? I will be alone when he’s gone. It’s just a fact. There are other serial killers in the world, of course, but it’s not like we have a club and it’s not one I’d be keen to join. Besides, I doubt there are many like Samuel and me who break the mold.

Eli sets his glass down on the mantle and pulls mine from my hand, setting it next to the photo. “You won’t be,” he says as he takes my hand and reels me into his warmth.

“I don’t mean it the way you think,” I grumble against his chest as the scent of bergamot drifts from his skin.

“Ah, you meant he’s the only one you let close, and when he’s gone, no one will understand you? Yeah, I think I got it just fine.” I pull back to look into Eli’s warm brown eyes, his dark lashes crinkling together at the edges as he smiles. He brushes hair back from my face, his grin widening as I raise a skeptical brow. “It’s not like I hadn’t noticed you’re a bit secretive. You don’t talk about any close friends. I don’t see you with anyone aside from Tida and David, not that it really counts since you share an office. You don’t even have any social media presence.”

“Yes, I do, you stalker. My Insta handle is @kanethekillercat. It’s mostly cat pictures—you’re not missing much. They’re artsy though. He’s highly photogenic.”

“Why haven’t you added me?”

“Because I hate you, remember?”

“Now, now, Pancake. We both know that’s not true.” I scowl but Eli remains unfazed. He kisses me on the nose as though my murderous glare is adorable. I could punch him in the throat, or spike his drink with enough tranquilizer to flatten a horse, or kill him with the twenty different weapons hidden in this room alone. But no. He just grins with that stupid fucking dimple, teasing and cocky at first, but then it becomes something warmer. Something that looks heartfelt and hopeful. He frames my face in his palms and searches my eyes. “I want to understand you, Bria. I think I get a bit, but I know there’s a lot you’re not ready to share, and I won’t push you.”

“Have you considered what would happen if you found something you didn’t like? Maybe there are things you wouldn’t want to know.”

“I do want to know, actually. In case you hadn’t noticed, I like that you’re not all unicorns and cotton candy. You broke into my house and played sexy hide-and-seek, and it’s not like I was calling the cops, was it,” he says, and another kiss finds my skin, warming my cheekbone. “You embrace the hidden parts of me. You let them free. I want to do the same for you.”

I close my eyes and try to force myself to pull away. Every time I resolve to, there’s another kiss that stops me. On my eyelashes. On the bridge of my nose. On the corner of my lips.

I grip Eli’s wrists. Part of me wants to shove his hands away and rage at him. He’s rippling the surface of the waters I hide beneath. Things are stirring that I don’t have names for. Emotions I’ve never felt and I don’t understand. Fear most of all, the worst kind of fear, the kind I’ve so rarely had. Fear for someone else.

“Why are you doing this?” I whisper. My voice comes out strained. My chest burns with every press of Eli’s lips. I keep hold of his wrist with one hand and lay my palm above his heart with the other. It thunders beneath my touch. I take my first step backward toward the hallway that leads to the bedroom, pulling him with me even though I’m desperate to push him away.

“Kissing your face? I like kissing your face.”

“No. This,” I say, gesturing between us as though that can explain the way I feel. More kisses pepper my skin, one for every freckle, for every step I can’t help but take toward my room. “You're supposed to not like me. It’s…easier. I’m not…”

Words flare and die on my tongue like embers in the dark. Each step we make is a battle in my mind. I let out a strangled sound I’ve only ever made when I pushed my bloodied body from the desert floor, or when I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. The same sound I made when I tried to swim in the flood, the shore so close yet unreachable as I was swept away by the current.

But it doesn’t scare Eli away.

“You can let me in, sweetheart,” he whispers. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

I shake my head. Something burns in my throat when I swallow. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

Eli doesn’t stop the spread of kisses when he sweeps his arms across my back and lifts me from the floor. “Let me worry about myself. Just tell me where I’m supposed to go in this enormous house. I understand now why you laughed when I asked if you needed help paying for the trip to Ogden.”

When I try to smile, it feels like I’m forcing the wrong piece into a jigsaw puzzle. I point down the hall and lock my legs around Eli’s back and my arms behind his neck. My heart feels like it’s liquifying, dripping between my ribs. I’m too hot. Burning hot. This thing in my throat feels like a squeezing fist.

Eli stumbles when I catch his lips with mine and kiss him back, and he knocks into the wall, breaking the press of our lips with a whispered curse. We weave down the corridor until we finally make it to the bed. Eli hauls us onto the mattress with one arm still braced around me until my head is on the pillow, and when it is, he spends a long moment just hovering over me, brushing strands of hair from my face, taking whatever he sees and filling it with warmth.

When I look into Eli’s eyes, I don’t see the same man as the one in the coffee shop who stole glances like a leopard stalking in the shadows. He’s not the man who stoked my rage in his office the first time we met, or the one who teased me in the library, or the beast who consumed me in his bed. He’s so much more. He’s generous and funny and kind. And he looks at me like I could be all of those things too. I wish I could be. I’ve never wanted it until this moment, and now that I see it, it’s as distant as a star. I could try for a thousand years and I know I’d never get there.

“What are you doing to me?” I whisper, an echo of his question last night.

“Taking care of you,” Eli says. I’m about to argue when he taps my lips with an index finger. “If it helps to not weird you out, I can claim to have an ulterior motive. If I do a good enough job looking after you, you might not gut me when I introduce you as my girlfriend.”

Girlfriend. 

That tightness winds around my throat once more. It slithers into my chest, pulling at my bones. The breath that passes my lips is unsteady, and a faint smile lifts the corners of Eli’s mouth when no argument follows it. Just a breath. An admission in a simple thread of air, that maybe I want that too.

The faint smile that was there on Eli’s face dissolves, melted away by the heat in his eyes. It’s not the same desire I’ve seen in him before. It’s longing, not need. I can’t decipher everything I see in his expression. There might be fear or hope. Or resignation or resolve. The emotions I see blur together like paint in turpentine. “Tap my shoulder three times if you need me to stop,” Eli says, and before I can ask why, his lips meet mine.

This kiss is slow and deep. There is no rush. No brutality. Just gentle pressure and languid strokes of our tongues. When Eli’s fingers trace the lines of bone or the curve of sinew and flesh, the touch is purposeful. He paints my skin with tingling caresses. Long, sweeping streaks of goosebumps follow in his wake.