this is our own self-contained universe. Just like the club was, all those weeks ago. But that was so different. That didn’t matter. Now, it feels like everything hinges on this moment, on this place, on me, on him, on us. “Isn’t this all just a game, anyway? A show?”
“Can either of us really pretend that anymore?”
We fall silent for a few long moments. Angelo stares into the distance, looking haunted.
“Dani.” He turns, eyes fixed on me. “I’ve never shared this with anybody.”
“Shared what? You haven’t even said anything.”
“Because I can’t.”
“You’ve hurt people,” I whisper.
He says nothing.
“Killed people?”
Silence.
Suddenly, as if he can’t bear the pressure, he pounces up and storms over to the window, breathing heavily.
I just stay where I am and watch him. I feel torn. He’s just a silhouette against the night sky, a vague outline. I wonder if that’s what he’s been all along with me, too: just a vague outline. Not really, well, real. Just something I made up in my head, when I actually have no clue who he is.
But is that true? I know how he makes me feel. I know that, despite everything, we’ve got a connection.
We just stand like this for far too long. It’s one of those weird pauses in arguments—if that’s what this is—when neither person is amped-up enough to say anything.
Eventually, he turns to me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Ditto.”
He smiles sadly. I smile in return. I can’t help it. When he looks at me like that, it’s so easy to just let everything fall away and just be Dani and Angelo. As if everything else, the rest of our lives, is separate. It’s a beautiful lie.
“I want to believe you’re a good person,” I tell him. “Are you, Angelo?”
“What does that mean?”
“Have you ever hurt somebody who wasn’t able to defend themselves?”
“I don’t know what that means,” he says simply. His eyes narrow. “Why are you asking me these questions?”
I don’t have the faintest idea how to answer that question. “I—uh…”
But he doesn’t wait for me to find my voice. Instead, he grabs me roughly by the wrist and drags me to the bathroom. “Angelo, what the—”
“Sh,” he orders.
We stomp into the bathroom and he immediately cranks open both faucets and the shower on full blast. The room begins to fill with the rush of water and peals of steam rising up into the air. I can feel my skin flush. I try to catch Angelo’s eyes, but he turns back from the shower and crosses the room towards where he left me against the marble countertop.
“Turn around,” he barks.
“Wait, what—”
He sighs, exasperated, and whirls me around, then directs my hands flat on the marble. I watch in the mirror as he drops to one knee and starts to pat at my ankle. His hands slide up my calf, past my knee, gripping my thigh tight. And just when I think he’s going to stroke between my legs…
He drops down to the next leg and starts from the bottom again.
This isn’t foreplay. He’s patting me for a freaking wire.
“Angelo, you need to—”
“Do not talk until I tell you you can,” he orders. His hands trail up to my waist now, dipping in past the top of my jeans—just barely—then out again. His fingertips leave hot trails in their wake.
It all seems so ridiculous. But there’s nothing funny in his intense expression.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I told you not to talk,” he says again, but his voice is softening slightly. I notice the heat from the steam against my cheeks, but even more than that, I notice the heat at my center that his touch always ignites in me. He slides under my arms, behind my neck.
Only when he is certain that I’m not bugged does he let out a long, relieved sigh.
He brushes his hand down my face, cupping my chin. The way he does it, almost possessively, it would be annoying if any other man did it. But with Angelo, like so many other things about him, I love it when he touches me like that. It’s like I want to be possessed. By him and him alone.
“You asked me if I’ve ever hurt somebody defenseless,” he says. “The answer to that is no. But I have hurt people who wouldn’t dare hit me back. Is that the same thing to you?”
“When they owe you money?”
“When they owe me money,” he confirms over the rush of the faucets.
“And I’m guessing that, once we leave this room, this