Kiss Me in the Dark Anthology - Monica James Page 0,143

at me for a long moment, shaking his head. He opens his mouth to say something else, but he must change his mind, because the next minute, I’m alone.

He’s gone. I blink through tears, sliding to the floor, curling my legs around beside me as I stare up at the plaques that mark the final resting places of my sister, my mother, and my stillborn brother, the longed-for son whose entry into this world ended both of their lives.

All three of them dead because they were born Capulets.

Not just a surname, not just a bloodline — but a curse.

I stare up at my sister’s spot in the wall, at eye-level if I were standing. Adeline would know what to do. She always knew what to do. That’s why her suicide was even more tragic. Death was the only logical choice for her.

I don’t want to die. I’m too weak to pull the trigger and end it all, too much of a coward to put my head underwater and let cold death rush into my lungs.

I understand Will’s warring love and hatred, I do. It’s exactly the feeling that claws at my throat whenever I think of my sister and what she doomed me to in her absence. It’s exactly the sensation that fills me when my father kisses my cheek, and I melt into his carefully doled out ration of affection like an emotionally malnourished child, even as I want to kill him with my bare hands for using me like a worthless pawn in our family’s name.

Rome

Have you ever tried getting your dick sucked after you’ve been snorting yourself stupid for three days?

It’s all milk and cookies on day one, all warm and soft and lovely. But after a while ... After a while, it just hurts.

“Rosaline,” I mumble. My hands are on her head, but there’s so much loose blonde hair that I can’t find her face.

It’s day three of a sex-and-drugs bender that should have ended before it began, when Rosaline called me on Friday night. I’m still not sure why I answered, but you can probably blame my aforementioned dick for that.

This girl is insatiable. She’s so pale, her small, firm tits firm in my palms as she bounces in my lap. We’ve moved to fucking now that her jaw is sore. Rosaline’s pussy is tight enough. My dick is hard enough. It’s all vaguely pleasant. And yet … it’s like sandpaper against my skin at the same time. I’m too high to come. I’m like an engine revving at eighty percent, but my handbrake is jammed on, and I’m not getting anywhere. And goddamn it, her hair. It’s everywhere. There are strands on my couch and on my clothes and earlier, when I swallowed a mouthful of the beer she’d handed me, one of those strands got stuck halfway down my fucking throat and made me gag. She’s got so many hair extensions weaved into her head, if she committed a crime a lot of innocent Russian women would be going to prison.

“Rosaline,” I snap, pushing her off my lap.

“What are you doing?” she asks, toppling to the side of me, landing on a pile of cushions at the far end of my long, antique leather couch.

I put myself back together, wincing as I tuck my thoroughly-fucked cock back into my jeans and button up. I fasten my belt, too, selecting a notch one tighter than normal. What is it about girls who get high and suddenly turn into sex-crazed demons?

Though, to be fair, Rosaline is a sex-crazed demon when she’s straight. Can’t blame the coke for her insatiable libido.

Rosaline leans back on my leather couch, the only nice thing in this falling-down room. Her eyes are red-rimmed and empty. She’s fucking high, and her comedown is yet to kick in. Oh honey, just you wait. The higher you go, the further you fall.

“I’m tired,” I say, my only explanation. I stretch my arms above my head and let them fall out to the sides, my head resting on the low back of the couch. I’m an offering on an imaginary cross, a crucifixion of my very own making. Because I’m starting to come down off this shit … and the fall is brutal.

Rosaline pouts beside me. She’s still flying high, her eyes like a cat stalking in the middle of the night. She straddles me again, placing her hands on the back of the couch, lifting herself into a position where she can graze