I shed my jacket on one of her bar stools, unable to prevent the wide-ranging study of the place she shares with Mike.
It’s almost as cold as the winter outside.
There aren’t many pictures, very few knick-knacks, and a lot of stainless steel. It’s the kind of modern apartment my interior designer tried throwing on me because I was a single dude making a lot of money, therefore my apartment should reflect minimalist tastes with ugly paintings—a ridiculous proposal that had me firing her right after I fucked her.
And looking around Astor’s crib, I can honestly say that my bachelor-driven, women-screwing, pet-free home is way more colorful and inviting than hers.
Probably because you had your mom to help you out, and she didn’t.
The unwelcome answer has me scowling further.
“I didn’t ask you here, so stop staring at my laptop like you want to kill it,” Astor says.
I blink out of my fugue, realizing I’m staring at her open computer on the kitchen counter, it’s eerie blue glow calling out to me even when I didn’t know it.
I bend closer to the screen. “Whatchu got up on it?”
She snaps it shut. “Privileged information.”
“That’s your favorite word, isn’t it?”
“Right up there with asshole and bastard, yes.”
Astor unpacks the pasta I brought her, scraping it onto a plate. The resulting, garlicky, buttery scent must make her soften, because she says without looking up, “Thank you for bringing this.”
“You’re welcome.”
She continues to putter around the kitchen, grabbing a mug, turning on the coffee machine, and while I enjoy every time she bends down to the lower drawers and I see a hint of my favorite cheeks, I get down to business as soon as she sits on the stool beside me and begins shoveling down food like a bear set loose in a trailer park.
“Why’d you leave, if you were so hungry?” I ask.
She pauses, swallows, and dabs at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I had a lot of work to get to.”
“The SI Slaughters.”
“Yep.” She takes another forkful. When she finishes chewing, she says, “What’s fast turning out to be your favorite mystery to solve.”
“I’m worried about you.”
I say it before I pussy out. I’ve caught Astor in a vulnerable moment. She’s bleary-eyed, clearly tired and emotionally drained in a way I’m not used to noticing. Not even when her mom died, and I found it strange, then. How she bottles everything up, doesn’t bother anybody. It’s a matter of time before she breaks. And in an indescribable way, I want to be there if and when it happens, despite knowing I’ve contributed to it.
Astor leans back as much as she can on a stool. “Mike and I broke up.”
Now that, I didn’t expect. “Uh, what?”
She nods and slides off the stool to get my coffee. “How do you take it?”
“Um—that sucks. Oh, coffee. Just milk. Thanks.”
She pours in the milk, the soft glug the only sound between us before she places the mug in front of me and resumes her seat. And eating.
“So…you want to expand on that?” I ask.
Astor shrugs her exposed shoulder. “He cheated. I caught him. End of story.”
“That fucker cheated on you?”
My roar is unexpected. Astor jolts, but recovers quickly. “Don’t be so surprised. I wasn’t. I tend to attract the jerks.”
Oh, good one, Astor. I want to reply with a sarcastic snipe of my own, but the cracks in her armor are obvious. She’s covering heartbreak with insults, and while I’ll never know why she’s so broken up over that douche, I can at least be pleasant.
“I’m sorry, Astor. Really, I am.”
She nails me with her blues. “Which part?”
“Huh?”
“Which part are you sorry for? Leaving me naked and humiliated six years ago, or seeing me half-naked and humiliated now?”
Damn. I should learn, never underestimate the blunt knife of Astor Hayes. “Both.”
Her brows jump. “Wow. Good for you.”
“You can stop with the sarcasm, Astor. I’m trying to be real here—”
“In ways you weren’t all those years ago? Thanks for sacking up and finally apologizing—”
“What the fuck?” I rise from the chair, but Astor is far from intimidated. “I’m trying to be your friend now, okay? I’m here because I’m concerned. You’re not yourself.”
Astor laughs dully. “I’m in the middle of the biggest case of my career, my fiancé dumped me—or I dumped him, but he’ll never let you believe it—and I don’t have the balls to conquer either. I should scream at Mike, right? I should’ve let him have it and thrown him out on his ass, then burned his designer clothing in a pyre right there. Right fucking over there.” She points to the middle of the bare living area, where something extremely fluffy and flammable covers the floor under the glass coffee table.
Astor’s voice is rising, and I’m unsure if I should stop her. Or even sit back down.
“And just because I have Lily,” she continues. “Just because she’s a vulnerable, loving, innocent baby, shouldn’t mean I should feel so connected to a four-year-old boy who witnessed his parents be tortured and murdered, then be carted off into some unknown where he’s supposed to figure out what’s normal again. Without his dad. Without his mom.” Astor breaks on the last word, and she’s still pointing to the living room, but her hand is shaking, her finger is trembling, and she’s staring far off into a vacant area where the ghost of my old self is probably sitting.
“Astor...”
“I’m strong. I can get through this.” Fiercely, Astor locks her gaze on mine and stabs at her chest. She stands. “I’ll be able to find Ryan Delaney and expose him like my boss wants. Like I want. Because I’m not connected to that boy. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s not Lily. And I’m not weak.”
“Is this what you’ve been doing?” I ask in a low voice. “While dealing with your breakup, you’ve been throwing yourself into Ry—into this boy’s life, trying to find him?”
Astor sniffs. Hard. “If I don’t find him, someone else will.”
“Astor, the kid is long gone. You’re not gonna—”
“His parents could go on trial. I heard today. Everything about what happened over twenty years ago, all the gory details, will be made public. He’s the only witness, Ben. And if I want him bad, think of all the other people who do, too.”
Astor’s breathing heavily, her broken bottom lip trembling. I’m doing everything in my power not to indicate that the kid she wants so badly, the lost boy who dreams in blood, is standing right in front of her.
“If he wants to testify for the trial,” I say carefully, “there are procedures in place to protect him. He’ll come forward under their terms. You can’t keep him safe, Astor, if you expose him. All those bad guys, the people that killed his parents? They’ll do exactly what you fear, and it’ll be because of you.”
“Don’t you get it?” Astor’s voice is wobbly, like it’s holding on solely by strings. “If I don’t do this, if I don’t bring him to my boss, I’ll lose everything. My career—my track to make partner, is over. My marriage is over, since I never had one. My reputation will be over…this is all I have.”
I reach for her, but she skitters out of my reach. Her eyes, that ocean shore blue, are turbulent with either desperation or a mental breakdown.
“Astor, you’re exhausted. Let me—”
“I have a way,” she says. “I know how to find him. Follow the money.”
My head tilts. “What?”
“His inheritance. Ryan’s parents left a will. I can trace where it went.”
“That can’t be possible.” It comes out more dismissive than I intend. “There’d be a ton of red tape.”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
She says it in a way that she found a mistake. My blood goes cold.
“Astor,” I say, and
I enunciate her name. “If you blow open a hole, all the other termites are gonna come crawling in. Ryan won’t be safe.”
“I know. I know that. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand that’s why I’m going crazy?” She strides away, then whirls on me. “Why do you care so much, anyway? What’s a retribution murder case with a surviving toddler got to do with you?”
My jaw hardens. “The kid means shit to me. It’s you. I’m worried for you, and the people you’re about to piss off if you do this.”
“You said that before,” she says quietly, searching my eyes. “Like you have experience with the wrath of drug cartels or something. There’s nothing to indicate they’d go after me.”
“What do you think Ryan’s parents thought?”
“That’s not the same.” Astor waves it off, like being raped, brutalized and tortured could never happen to her. “I’m not exposing any of the cartel’s secrets. Or members.”
My mom…Rose Delaney’s face, rises from its depths, through the black of memories. Her mouth, twisted open. Her torn summer dress. Her arms, streaked with blood, reaching out to me, her words the opposite of her actions.
Run, Ryan. Run, honey! RUN!
I screw my eyes shut and turn away from Astor.
“Ben?”
I feel Astor come up behind me, her voice back to normal decibels.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
With surprising tenderness, she lays a hand on my arm. On my scar.
As if realizing what she’s done, she abruptly lifts her hand.
“I…I know I don’t sound normal.” She clears her throat. “I’m sorry for that. I’m forced to admit I’m going through a lot right now, but I’ll be alright. You don’t—I mean, thank you for coming by. For checking up. You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.”
Finally I turn to her. She flinches, as if my stare contains fire. Maybe it does.
“You’re taking on too much,” I say roughly. “And you’re throwing yourself into a shitload of danger, even though you don’t know it. I’m asking you to stay away. For your own safety, Astor. For your family. Stay. Away.”
This close, I can see her shades of blue. Depthless and bright, they mesmerize as they try to discern my shadows.
“Your concern is duly noted,” she says without breaking our stare. “But I’m a big girl, and what you saw a minute ago isn’t how I’ve been approaching this.”
“You can hide your emotion with business all you want. I know you. And I know that once you do this, you’ll never be the same again.”
“So, a different Astor will rise from the ashes, then,” she says matter-of-factly.
“She’s already been burned too many times,” I say.
Her hand, still holding my arm, spasms ever so softly. Like she’s remembering I have touched fire and come out of real ash.
Abruptly, she backs off. “All right.”
“All right?” I repeat.
“I’ll back off,” she clarifies, but I know a but when I see one. “If you tell me why it means so much to you that I do.”
“I thought I just did.”
“Yes, my safety.” Astor nods. “That’s bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you were so concerned with my safety,” she says, and forms the word like it’s bitter on her tongue, “You would’ve done a lot more than what you chose to do in my dorm room six years ago.”
I suppress a growl. “You can’t keep coming back to that, Astor—”
“I sure as fuck can. That morning? When you left me alone and exposed? You weren’t too concerned for my protection. Especially when the photos circulated. That fact weakens everything you’re telling me now. It’s not me you’re trying to protect. So, what’s the truth? Why do you want me to stay away?”
I want to tell her that every footstep out of her dorm room was weighed with demons, the ones telling me to run and the ones telling me to stay. That leaving her there made me the worst kind of man. That those midnight touches, having her, kissing her, was the only gap in time where choosing to keep Ryan Delaney buried and Ben Donahue aboveground was a wavering decision.
Astor’s attention flicks to the spaces on my body where my burns lie. “Do you know something about that fam—?”
I do the only thing I can think of. A desperate, spontaneous, wanting thing.
I kiss her.
16
Astor
I know why Ben Donahue carries burns.
It’s because he’s made from fire—he has to be—since heat sears his lips to mine. His tongue scorches. His body is hot, hardened with volcano ash, and my nails score across his skin, leaving red rivers of lava—
“Jesus Christ, Ben.” I push away, breathing hard.
He stands in front of me, arms limp at his sides, but his chest heaves.
“What was that?” I ask. Dumbly. Eyes wide.
He palms his mouth. Rubs. A finger slides across the inside of his lower lip like he’s still trying to taste me.
I instantly feel damp where I shouldn’t.
I’m in an over-sized NYU sweater from college. It has holes in it, probably from moths, mostly from my picking at the hem or chewing on the sleeves’ ends when I’m studying. My hair’s all over the place from constantly pushing it away from my face so it wouldn’t stick to my wet cheeks, damp from tears.
I’m so tired of crying. Over what, I’m not sure of anymore. My dead mother? An orphaned boy who’s now twenty-six? Mike? My career?
There’s a system overload going on, and I’m not sure how to stop it. All I’m aware of is, when Ben’s mouth hit mine, my mind went silent.
I couldn’t hear anything. Wasn’t thinking about anything. I just felt.
My lips rub together in remembrance, and Ben’s stare finds an inner flame at the movement. He takes a step forward, toward me, and goddamnit my eyes are welling up again.
“Don’t,” I say, though I can’t mean it.
He stops. “Astor, I…”
I hold my palm up, like I want him to stay where he is, except all I need is for him to be around me again. For his heat to stop all the cold from creeping in.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what I was thinking, I—”
“I want you to leave.”
Ben’s mouth shuts. He nods. “Consider me gone.”
When Ben turns, when he passes the kitchen counter with cold shrimp scampi and a sad, warmed-over, single glass of white wine, I sprint from the other side of the room, hook him by the arm, and leap against his chest.
Ben catches me seamlessly. His mouth fits to mine with perfect, explosive precision. His hands cup my asscheeks as I squirm against him, wanting, needing to be closer, and he meets my every whimper by holding me tighter.
I kiss him like I’m starving.
He tongues me like he’s handing over all the dessert I want.
Ben groans beneath me, as I dig my fingers into his hair and clutch the back of his neck, wanting deeper access, tracing every space he has. Through his hold, with us standing in the center of my apartment, he glides over my underwear.
As soon as he feels how much I want him, there’s a rumble in his throat.
“Ben,” I moan into his mouth.
He responds by spinning us, stumbling over and around, until he finds the couch and we fall onto it.
I’m underneath him, giving Ben plenty of the access he demands. My legs spread without thought, he moves my panties to the side as I writhe, and he dips.
His mouth is still on mine, and he eats my cries like candy. Ben rubs, massages, flicks, and I can’t get enough.
Nobody’s been able to do this to me, not any boy I’ve had, any man I’ve tried, not Mike, not anyone…except Ben. Mike’s entire dick doesn’t come close to what Ben’s index finger can do, and I twist into every curl, bend to every beckon, until eyes open or shut, all I see are black stars.
Six years ago, Ben did this to me. I went supple in his hands, allowed him to m
old me like softened butter—the only man I’ve let come close to my heart.
Six years later, Ben’s acquired even better skills.
When I come, I do it without conscious thought, uncaring of how I may look or sound. I’m freed from chains that bind—the locks of reality. And I use his name as my anchor out of fantasy.
Panting, eyes half-lidded, Ben’s a blur, but I see a curve of pink—his smile.
Too soon, real life crash-lands into my chest. As if he can sense it, I watch Ben’s smile die on his lips as he lifts off, helping me into a seated position.
I notice, through his jeans, that he is rock hard.
“Do you still want me to go?” Ben’s voice is rough, like he’s scraped it over a blacksmith’s stone.
“I…I don’t know what I…” I shut my eyes tight, unwilling to start a war against my brain and my heart. “I think that’s best.”
He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and I flinch. It’s not because of what he thinks, though, as his hand falls. It’s because I’m wondering if he still sees me as the cruel joke I once was.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs.
I shake my head. “Please go.”
The couch cushion shifts as he stands, and that’s my only clue that he’s doing as I ask. I can’t look at him as he adjusts himself and walks out. Can’t think upon the fact that the only reason he’s leaving is because I’ve asked him to.
He’d stay, if I wanted. We’d be naked in bed in less than a minute, and he’d give me all the pleasure I’ve been desperate for since we parted so severely all those years ago.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Our past is smeared because of a dare. And now…now I feel he’s hiding something. That maybe he’s only wanting to get physical with me as a distraction.
And both those times, I’ve felt used.
Ben knows exactly where I’m weak. I thought I was over it—I’ve been over it for years now, moved on, found a fiancé, was willing to marry someone who wasn’t Ben.
And all Ben had to do to unravel everything I’ve worked for, is look at me with desire.
“God, I’m an idiot.”
“What?” Ben pauses at the door.
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