I can hear his heart beating against my ear. A strong heart. A steady one. Not shrunken and twisted by time, despite all that’s happened to him.
“You’re wearing the necklace,” Dean says, pleased.
“It’s my favorite gift I’ve ever received,” I tell him.
The necklace is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever held in my hands. I like it all the more for what it symbolizes between Dean and me: erotic connection, and the violent secret that brought us together.
I don’t feel the same guilt about Rocco Prince anymore.
It ebbed away, bit by bit, with every day I spent with Dean.
“I think our sex has been therapeutic,” I say to Dean.
He chuckles. “For you or for me?”
“Maybe both.”
He sits up on his elbow so he can look at me, his violet eyes keen and curious.
“Why do you like it?” he says. “The rough sex . . . the domination.”
“At first I liked it because I felt guilty. I felt like I deserved to be punished for what I did. At the same time, it felt so good. It heightened every sensation—I’d never experienced anything so intense. The stronger you were, and the more aggressive, the more it made you seem god-like, superhuman. And that made me want to please you . . .”
“Go on . . .” Dean grins.
I can feel his cock stiffening again against my hip, though we only just finished fucking.
“There’s this other part of it, too,” I say. “It’s the way you focus on me, when we’re doing kinky shit. It’s like I’m the only thing in the world. You’ll spend hours touching and manipulating me. I love the attention.”
“You are the only thing in the world,” Dean says seriously. “You’re all I have now, Cat.”
I can’t believe he’s looking at me with that expression of utter focus. I can’t believe he’s saying those words to me.
For all the time I’ve spent with Dean, I still find it baffling that someone as ferocious as him could fall in love with someone like me. Some days I think I’ve grown so much. But others, I still feel terrified inside.
Like right now.
I want this to be real.
I don’t know what I’ll do if it isn’t.
I touch the pendant laying in the divot of my collarbones.
“I never got you a Christmas gift,” I say.
“I didn’t expect you to,” Dean says. “The only thing I want is exactly what I’m getting. You, naked, obeying my every command . . .”
He kisses the side of my throat, then slowly works his way down my body.
Before I lose myself in the sensation, I think to myself that there must be something I can do for him . . .
Saturday morning, I walk down to the village with Dean.
The village clusters in a half-moon around the harbor, the buildings green and mossy, the street unpaved, because there’s no cars on the island. The students like to walk down here in good weather to pick up letters at the post office, eat the fresh-caught cod at the fish and chips shop, or visit the tiny cafe for tea, biscuits, and hand-made caramels.
Today is not particularly good weather, so Dean and I are two of the only people willing to brave the wind.
We stop in briefly at the second-hand bookstore where Dean has been trading in his well-read novels for any he can’t find at the school library.
Upon better acquaintance with Dean, one of the many things that surprised me is that he reads at least one novel every week, in addition to all his schoolwork. Or at least, he used to before he started spending so much time with me.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, since he places top in his class in marks. I knew he wasn’t just a dumb boxer.
“There aren’t any dumb boxers,” Dean informs me, as he picks through the pleasantly-musty piles of books. “Or least, not any good ones. Boxing requires strategy. It’s not so different from chess.”
“They might not start out dumb,” I tease him. “But after all those hits to the head . . .”
“Careful,” he growls, giving me a sharp little smack on the ass. “Don’t think you’re safe just because we’re in public . . .”
My bottom is already bruised from our last session. Dean has been especially aggressive this week, probably because he’s still upset about his father, much as he tries to hide it.