No. Can’t do it.
Fuck my life.
I took a step back, glanced at the pink silk in my fist and huffed out a breath before hanging it back away carefully. I thumbed through the options as quickly as I could, settling on a matching set of black silk shorts and a cami with a lace trim.
I stalked back into my room butt naked, placing her clothes down on the end of the bed without looking at her where she lingered by the top of the stairs.
“Saint…” she breathed.
A low growl sounded in the base of my throat and I kept walking until I was in my bathroom where I tossed the door closed behind me.
Rage was prickling beneath my skin again and I needed to sink further into my ritual to banish it. I doubted I’d be able to offer her anything other than silence at best, but I only had to make it until midnight. A single hour.
Then the lights would go off and I’d…well, I wouldn’t sleep at first. I’d lay down and close my eyes and try to force myself to sleep. And once she drifted off and her breathing grew steady, I’d open my eyes and roll onto my side so that I could watch her. Study her. Envy her for the hours she spent in slumber while my demons whispered in my ears to keep me awake.
But then I would find sleep. Easier than on the nights when she wasn’t with me. My mind slowed when I looked at her. The echoes of fear which I tried to forget didn’t creep so close. I still didn’t sleep a lot. But I did manage considerably more while she was close and though I didn’t understand why, I appreciated that gift she gave me without her even realising she did it.
I scrubbed my flesh clean beneath the flow of hot water while listening to Piano Sonata No.14 in C Sharp Minor performed by the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra. It was a melancholy and self-pitying thing to do, but I could accept that I was a tad over dramatic in my musical decisions at times. My fingers twitched with the urge to play the song myself. It had been too long since I’d indulged in creating my own music. I used to use the music rooms in Ash Chambers every day to play, but recently I’d been going there less and less. The piano always felt like it had a direct lifeline to my heart and sometimes I didn’t like to face the darkness of the music I was compelled to create.
But tomorrow I was going to go back to the instrument I loved and face my demons. And if it was self indulgent to do it then so be it. I could admit I was a selfish, petty creature at times. Probably more often than not if I was honest.
I got out of the shower and dried myself carefully, brushing my teeth before swiping a hand over the mirror to clear the condensation from it so that I could hunt my eyes for the darkness which still stirred beneath my skin. Not that it ever truly left. I thought of it as an endless sea. Sometimes I found myself drowning in the depths of it and other times I was wading along the shore, only my toes dipped beneath the waves. Today I was caught in a whirlpool which threatened to drag me down to the bottom.
I sighed as I allowed the sorrowful playlist to continue, tapping the console on the wall to lower the volume and send it out to the speakers in my room so that I could latch onto it when I saw her.
I would prove that I was the master of my own evil.
She could sleep in my bed and I’d save her punishment for tomorrow when my blood wasn’t running so cold. Or maybe the next day. I wouldn’t think on it now either way.
I pulled the bathroom door open and fell still as I found her kneeling outside it waiting for me. Just like I asked her to do in the mornings outside the crypt. She’d changed into the black shorts and camisole I’d selected for her and her golden hair had been brushed until it shone, cascading down around her face as she kept her head down.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my throat raw as I looked at her and my heart pounded to a deliciously slow beat.
How did she know exactly how to disarm me? How did she see so much of me when I made sure to keep everything in me locked down at all times? I hadn’t even considered asking her to do this for me and yet she’d realised that it was what I needed. But why? Why would she care what I needed when she’d been the architect of my demise?
“Making peace,” she replied without raising her head. “For tonight.”
I swallowed thickly, my skin tingling as I looked down at her, curled in submission by her own choice.
“Why?” I murmured. I couldn’t understand it. She’d brought me to ruin and I thought that was what she’d wanted to do.
“Because…I’m tired, Saint. I’m tired of all of you hurting me and me hurting you and I just want to pretend for a little while that we’re even. You burned my letters so I burned your records.” She shrugged her shoulders and her hair shifted where she remained kneeling before me.
The truth lodged in my throat for a moment, but I didn’t speak it. I was still too raw after what she’d taken from me.
“I guess on this one thing we’re even then,” I conceded. “Those records were the only thing I had left of my grandmother, so…”
She inhaled sharply and looked up at me, her hair splitting apart to reveal her blue eyes.
“I didn’t know that,” she said, frowning slightly like that might have changed what she’d done. But I didn’t see why it would. “Did you love her?”
I grunted noncommittally, offering her a hand to pull her up.
She gazed at me like she was deciding whether or not to accept it before slipping her hand into mine.
I pulled her upright and she stood before me with her breath feathering past her parted lips, a thin lock of golden hair fluttering between us.
She still held my hand and my skin burned where it met hers, like I was ice and she was fire and we were destined to collide like this again and again until one of us was destroyed. And as I looked into her eyes, I was almost certain that it would be me. That the fire in her would never go out and I was bound to be consumed by it. But in that moment, it didn’t seem like the worst of fates.
I reached out with my free hand and gently tucked the loose lock of hair behind her ear, the silken strands brushing against my skin as I lingered in that touch.
“Why do you always have to do that?” she asked softly, her fingers shifting against mine.
“Do what?”
“Fix me. Tidy me up. Dress me like some perfect little dolly and correct every small imperfection.” The tightness in her lips said she didn’t like that and I frowned as I tried to figure out why.
“Because…I see how beautiful you are and I want the world to see it too. I want you to shine like the brightest star in the sky and for the world to know that this perfect creature belongs to me.”
“But I’m not perfect,” she insisted. “And I know for a fact that you don’t really think I am either. Or you wouldn’t keep trying to change me all the time.”
“I don’t want to change a single thing about you,” I objected, though maybe that was a lie. “At least…I only want to maintain control of you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it when you fight back against me – most of the time.”
“That’s…not the impression you give me,” she replied, her eyes narrowing like she was searching for a lie.
“And what impression do I give you?” I asked, running my hand down her spine slowly and enjoying the way her back arched at the contact.
“That I’m…a project or something to work on. A doll with a malfunctioning personality which you’re aiming to stamp out. Sometimes I think you won’t stop until I’m nothing but an empty vessel awaiting your permission to so much as blink.”
My lips pursed at that assessment and I splayed my hand over the base of her spine, revelling in the warmth of her skin beneath the silk.
“I don’t want that,” I growled. “I just want…” I didn’t even think I had an answer to that so I only sighed.
She shifted closer to me, her grip on my fingers tightening as she looked up at me. “If I could understand why it matters so much to you then maybe it wouldn’t hurt me so much,” she murmured. “Or is that what you want - to hurt me?”
<
br /> I shook my head at that assessment. Pain might have been a tool I wielded in my mission to gain control, but I only wielded it as a means to an end with her. It wasn’t my goal to wound her. “You want to know why I need to control the things that matter to me?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at her. “That’s…a complicated issue.”
Tatum rolled her eyes at me and I was struck with the urge to spank her for it. But I hadn’t done that in weeks. Not since she’d admitted she liked it. Because that changed it immeasurably and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the way I felt about that.
“Will you tell me?” she pushed and I found myself wanting to. At least in part.
“I had an…unsettling upbringing,” I said slowly. I wasn’t really going to go into it now, but I could give her enough of the truth to satisfy that need for knowledge I could see burning in her eyes. “Chaos was a constant. I moved between my family’s properties a lot with…not a lot of notice.” Or no notice, like being woken in the middle of the night and getting bundled onto a private plane without being given a destination. “It was very disconcerting to say the least. I wasn’t allowed much that was constant. My father believes in being prepared for anything so he wanted me to be used to thinking on my feet, adapting to unexpected changes. I could never be sure I’d eat my breakfast and dinner in the same house let alone choose what I’d eat…”
“I moved around a lot too growing up,” she said in a low voice. “I get how unsettling it can be. But for you, your routines, control, they just seem so vital-”
“I imagine you had some warning about the moves you made,” I replied with a shrug. “And were allowed to bring things with you. I remember when I was five I had this action man who I called Clive and I fucking loved that thing. He had a gun and a car and… well, it’s foolish to place sentiment on inanimate objects.” I shrugged off the memory of Father making me push that stupid doll in the garbage disposal because it was making me soft. I hadn’t really played with toys after that.
“What happened to Clive?” Tatum asked me gently and it was so fucking ridiculous that she gave a shit about some damn lump of plastic that I barked a laugh.
“He got left behind, I suppose,” I replied vaguely. “My grandmother was the one who’d bought him for me. She was the only one in my family who seemed to think that having something constant in my life was important. And after he – it – was gone, she came up with something better. Something permanent that she could give me which could never be left behind. Music.”
“The records?” Tatum chewed on her lip guiltily and my gaze fixed on the way her teeth sank into the plump flesh.
“They were from her. But she gave it to me in a more permanent way than that. She was the one who bought me my first grand piano and all the lessons to go with it.”
“I didn’t know you played,” Tatum gasped, her eyes lighting hungrily as she drank in that knowledge like she was starving for it.
“I imagine there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Tatum,” I replied in a low voice.
“Are you any good?” she asked.
“I’m proficient,” I replied.
“For fuck’s sake, you might as well just say you’re a pro. It’s obvious anyway. No way you’d have a hobby like that and not be the best at it,” she groaned and a real laugh escaped me.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. You’re a damn perfectionist. I bet you could perform for money if you needed any.”
“Music is all about control,” I said.
“And passion. You have to feel it in your heart.”
My lips parted on an objection to that, but I couldn’t make it pass my lips. Because as much as I may have liked to deny it, that was exactly the truth of it. It was why I needed it so much. Music spoke to my soul and calmed my heartache. It was the crutch I used to heal my wounds and rein in my moods.
“How is it you see things about me so clearly when I don’t even see them myself?” I asked, my thumb shifting over the back of her hand.
“Maybe you’re not as complicated as you want to believe,” she teased.
“I doubt that.”
“So…music gave you an ounce of control. Something you could own which couldn’t be taken from you. And then you just started laying claim to other things you could control?” she asked, clearly still trying to figure me out and for some reason I was still indulging her curiosity.
“I suppose so. Over the years I made routines I could stick to no matter where I was. Things that couldn’t be controlled by circumstance, like the times I do certain things. I may have had to bend to changes in time zones on occasion but barring that, I could always eat at the same times, workout at the same times, sleep…”
“So when did you realise you liked having control over other people?”
“It’s more about them not having control over me,” I replied. “The people I care for most in this world certainly don’t bow to my every whim. Kyan in particular goes out of his way to defy me. And don’t get me started on you.”
She tilted her head like something I’d just said had captured her attention but I wasn’t sure what part of it.
“And how do you feel when they do give you control?” she asked slowly. “When Kyan beats the shit out of someone because you demanded it for example.”
“Free,” I replied instantly. “I feel elevated beyond the chaos which is constantly surrounding me, trying to rip me apart.”
“And with…girls?” she asked, a blush colouring the skin beneath her freckles.
“What girls?”
“The err, girls you have. Do you get them to submit to you in the bedroom, or…”
“Are you asking me if I like to dominate women during sex?” I asked, my lips twitching with amusement.
She bit that bottom lip again and I released her hand to tug it free, keeping hold of her chin so she was forced to maintain eye contact with me.
“Yes,” she breathed.
I thought about that for a moment and shrugged because clearly I did. Though probably not in the way she was imagining. Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind before, but there hadn’t been a girl who held my attention for long enough for me to consider experimenting with it until now.
“Obviously I get off on being in charge. But in the past that’s just meant I bend girls over to fuck them so they can’t touch me when I don’t want them to.”
“Charming.”
“You asked,” I pointed out and she smirked.
“Fair point. But let’s say you had someone willing to let you be in charge of the whole thing, would you still just want to bend them over? Or would you want them to submit in other ways?” Her gaze lit with curiosity as she asked me that and a shiver ran through my flesh.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “If I was supposed to have control, I’d need to be sure it was absolute-”
“Total submission?”
“Yes,” I growled.
“That doesn’t sound so bad…in that situation.”
My heart pounded fiercely at those words on her full lips and I could feel myself getting hard at the mere suggestion of it.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a submissive,” I breathed.
“Maybe I’d like to surrender control occasionally,” she replied, her voice husky. “I think I thrive in chaos. I need it sometimes. And letting someone else take ownership of my flesh sounds kinda…hot.”
She licked her lips and I grunted before stepping back suddenly and moving away from her.
“Get into bed,” I said, needing some distance from her to think.
Her gaze dropped to my crotch where the outline of my rock hard dick was showing clearly through my white boxers. It didn’t matter that she could tell how much I desired her though. It only mattered if I acted on it and broke the rules. Which I wouldn’t. Rules were what stopped my world from caving in.
Tatum only hesitated a moment before doing as I’d said and getting into the bed. But instead of moving around to
her side, she knelt in mine.
The lace top of the pyjamas she was wearing was just transparent enough for me to see the pink flesh of her hardened nipples through it and a lump lodged in my throat as I drank in the sight of her.
“I wouldn’t have burned your records if I’d known what your grandmother meant to you,” she breathed and I frowned at the guilt in her expression.
“I’d imagine after the letters that would only make you more inclined to do it.”
“No. That just means I know exactly how much it hurts to lose something that special. And I wouldn’t want to do that to you or anyone else,” she replied resolutely.
My brow furrowed and I glanced away from her over the balcony to the church below, wondering how long I should let this farce go on.
“Saint?” she asked, drawing my gaze back to her. “I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. I…want you to tell me what to do.”
My pulse pounded in my ears at the thought of that and it only hammered harder at the wild look in her eyes which said she really did want it.
“I’m not going to break your rules, Tatum,” I growled, forcing myself to remain where I was despite the desire coursing through my blood.
“I don’t want you to…but why don’t you work around them? Just to see if you like it.”
“What about you?” I asked, taking a step towards her despite myself.
“I want to see if I like it too,” she admitted and the last of my resistance shattered.
I prowled towards her and she bit her lip once more as I closed in on her. “Lower your eyes.”
She did so instantly, still sitting in my usual spot, dominating my space like I was aching to dominate her. A rush of exhilaration ran through me as I moved to stand over her. I wondered if there was a chance she was truly enjoying this like I was. But if she wasn’t then why would she pretend? She didn’t owe me anything. And she must have known by now the hold she had over me. So she didn’t need to work for my attention.
I swallowed thickly as I observed her waiting for me in my bed, but that wouldn’t work at all. I couldn’t touch her if we were in bed – it was against the rules.
Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2) Page 26