I groan in pleasure. Some would think a fall like that would hurt, but I’m on the brink of coming. I love pain.
“Are you okay?” She hurries to the side of the bed and looks down at me on the floor. Her hair becomes a waterfall, cascading down her shoulders. The ends sway and dance above me, like a mobile for a baby.
Daphne is my devil’s lullaby, the only thing known in existence to tame the evil inside the hell in my heart.
I open my eyes, and she hurries to turn on the lamp near the bed. The light turns on, and I flinch. I feel caught. I don’t have the darkness anymore to hide who I am.
“You’re real,” she says in awe, tucking her brown strands behind her ear. “I thought … I thought you were … a dream.”
“You’d be better off if I was, Daphne.” I push off the floor and grip the bed, using it as leverage to stand.
Only I don’t straighten like I should. I don’t take the moment to walk out the damn door like I should. I don’t say goodbye.
Like I fucking should.
Instead, my dumbass inches forward because I’m entranced in her blue eyes.
“I can’t see you,” she says, reaching for her glasses.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m not that great to look at.”
“I think you’re the greatest thing in the world to lay my eyes on,” she states, stealing my breath. No one has that ability. She slides those black-framed glasses on her face, and my heart melts when I see how happy she is to see me.
Me.
She must be fucking crazy.
Her eyes roam my body, and she almost seems … hungry as she checks me out. The smile fades when she sees my hands. She gasps, grabbing the sardonic palms, uncaring of the blood. It’s obvious what it is, yet she doesn’t flinch. “What happened?” The way she rubs her hand over mine has my cock jerking. I don’t deserve pleasure. Not after what happened to Sarah.
“Something bad,” I state. “Something really bad.”
“Tell me.” She pushes off the bed and starts to limp toward another room.
I stop her, not wanting Daphne to hurt herself. “Where are you going?”
“The bathroom to get a rag. You don’t just have blood on your hands,” she says.
“Don’t,” I say. “I deserve to feel it. What I did is unforgivable. I came here to tell you goodbye—”
“What!” she yells and then realizes how loud she’s being. “You can’t leave. You can’t leave me. You can’t go. You can’t just…You can’t. Okay? You can’t leave me. I need you. I search for you in all the corners. Every shadow I see, I want to see you, and when you aren’t there, it hurts. It hurts so much. Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.”
“You don’t know me. This”—I hold up my hands for her to see—“this is nothing compared to what I’ve done. I’m not a good man.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I stabbed my best friend tonight. She might be dead right now. I don’t know. That’s the kind of man I am.”
“You didn’t do it on purpose.”
There is no way she can know that. “Maybe I did.”
“You didn’t. I don’t know how I know that. I just do.” She flinches in pain, and I swing her up into my arms and carry her to the bed.
“It doesn’t matter how I did it. What matters is that I did, and I need to leave for a while, until Reaper says I’m allowed to come back.”
“What happened?” She cups my face, searching my eyes for the truth.
I’m too afraid to give it to her.
“You want to know me? You want to make the decision for yourself?”
“Yes,” she says. “More than anything.”
I take a step away, shrug off my cut, and begin to undress. “You want to see the monster you allow to look at you at night?” I toss my shirt on the floor. “You want to see the man you touched yourself in front of?” I hiss, unzipping my pants. “I’m no fucking angel. I don’t say that with wiggle room for you to think there is hope for me. I’m hopeless, Daphne.” I’m becoming angry. What does she see in me? Everyone fears me. Why can’t she?
I toss my pants on the floor and stand in front of her naked as the day I was born. I turn, holding out my arms to show her the ruin of what is my body. Sure, I have tattoos, but the