up for me because it will end with one of us getting a bullet between the ears. Got it?”
I stare at her, trying to make the words sink in. This is the same speech I’ve heard a million times before, from my parents, my manager, from Dylan. I mean, it’s never been delivered by a hot, badass queen before, so maybe that’s all I need to make it stick. I reach out to run my fingers along her thigh. Although she shudders with need as I trail fire across her skin, she slaps my hand away.
“Here’s where things are different – I’m not your parents. I’m not Dylan.”
How is she reading my thoughts?
“I’m Claudia August, and maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you because you know nothing about my world, but trust me, the very mention of my name alone will have men in Tartarus Oaks quaking in their boots. I may have been in hiding for years, but I am my father’s daughter. I’m Claudia August and I’m here to protect you. I won’t leave you. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I will die for you. Got it?”
I won’t leave you.
They’re just words.
Four words that don’t even sound that great put together. They’re not exactly poetry worthy of being immortalized through the ages.
But on Claudia’s lips, they bring tears springing to my eyes.
I know all too well the power of words to heal or maim. I walk out on stage every night and swing words as weapons. Poetry is the knife I wield against my enemies, but it’s also the knife I use to cut myself. Every cruel word my parents spoke to me is etched under my skin.
Disgrace. Degenerate. Pervert. A worthless blight on our family name.
Claudia speaks aloud the secret wish of my heart. That someone, somewhere, believes I’m worthy.
I swallow. I can’t speak or I’ll burst into tears – not the manly kind of tears women find endearing, but heaping great snotty sobs that’ll turn Claudia away in disgust. And she’s still kneeling over me with no panties on. No bloody way do I want her going anywhere.
I swallow again. The demons do a stabby dance on the inside of my eyeballs. She tilts her head, waiting.
I do the only thing I can do. I kiss her. I claim her lips and I pour my pain into her. I open her lips with mine and I open the wound that is my heart and I let her see. I let her see it all.
I let her see my father’s rage, my mother’s cold cruelty. I let her see the duchess throw my guitar over a parapet, smashing it to pieces on the cobbles. I let her see the duke walk in on Dylan and I kissing and throw us both out on our arses. I let her see the empty seats in the audience when I invited them to my Royal Albert Hall concert, and the statement they made to the press when I changed my name. I let her see Dylan’s cold, dead, angry eyes when I found him in the hotel bathroom, the scrawled note in his hands.
I let her consume all the dark secrets I held close, all the times I made the wrong decisions, the times I pushed away people who wanted to love me because I was afraid they’d turn into my parents. All the times I believed that this would be different, this time they would see me, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Claudia’s lips open mine. She draws my pain into herself. What she gives in return is the ice of her strength – she cools the pain until it is beyond numb, like holding ice against your skin for too long. It becomes needles that stab and stab and stab but it’s not pain, not really, but a euphoria. It’s knowing you’re alive.
When I pull away, Claudia’s cheeks are glistening. “Oh, Gabe.” She strokes my face. And I realize it’s not her tears wetting her skin, but mine. So much for not crying in front of her.
Behind her, a shadow descends the stairs. Noah. He’s been sleeping in my bed, the bastard. I hope he didn’t use any of my toys. He’s got on a pair of black jeans slung low over his hips, and no shirt. His chest is covered in deep scratches. Claw marks stretching beneath his clover tattoo. And are those… burns?