“I mean it. Do you want a trust-fall exercise before we do it?”
“No, thanks. I’ll crack my head.” But she downed the beer so fast, I thought it was an optical illusion. Then she sat back, staring at the covered statue.
“I know you’re not going to show it to me, but I’m sort of okay with that. Because I know I’ll see it at Tate Modern. As long as I know something’s not gone forever, I don’t miss it.”
She wasn’t talking about my sculpture anymore, and we both knew that.
“You miss her,” I said. Fucking duh.
She nodded. “Every day. Losing her was worse than losing my limbs. I promised myself to never get attached like that again. It’s dangerous, you know? Better to keep people at arm’s length.”
“You already are.” I sucked my teeth. “Attached, I mean.”
“No, I’m not,” she protested, but her face was bright red.
“So you just happened to suck my blood? Ride someone else’s face with me handcuffed to your bed? To sculpt me?” I grinned. “You’re either attached or a certified psycho. Your pick, Good Girl.”
“Neither. I’m just a normal girl, with normal needs.” She tipped her chin up. “You bullied me in high school, and so yes, in a moment of insanity, I sucked your blood. In another, I let Pope go down on me. That doesn’t mean anything, Vaughn. I’m ordinary.”
I snorted. “The fuck you are. You wouldn’t be here if you were anywhere on the ordinary spectrum.”
“Because I’d be too boring to fit in your man cave?” She cocked her head, grabbing my half-full beer and tipping it into her mouth.
“Because you wouldn’t willingly come to my man cave,” I snapped. Not after everything she knew about me, anyway.
I picked up a chisel from the floor, poking at the strap of her top and pulling it slowly, knowing I could snap and tear it at any moment if I pressed the pointy tip to it.
“I’m normal.” She licked her lips, looking down at her hands. Her nipples puckered through her top, and she twisted her legs together, refusing to look me in the eye.
Nuh-uh. “Sure you are. You don’t like blood,” I goaded her.
She was a beautiful liar. Luckily, I didn’t mind a little deceit. People were obsessed with the truth, like they could fucking take it. Me, I liked messy and manipulative.
She shook her head, still inspecting the blade in my hand.
I slid the chisel from her top, put it to my upper wrist and cut a shallow wound horizontally, not even flinching. She let out a little gasp, her breath hitching. I smirked, standing up so I stood between her legs, bringing my wounded wrist to her face.
“This doesn’t turn you on.”
“No.” But there was no power in that statement. Her voice was throaty and full of need.
“How about when I do this?” I pressed the pointy part of the chisel to one of her puckered nipples through her shirt. It was so sensitive she couldn’t help herself. She closed her eyes and let a moan escape those pretty pink lips. I swirled the blade around her nipple, watching her tremble in her seat.
“No.” She squeezed her eyes shut, panting. “No.”
“You can always leave,” I challenged, knowing she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Every encounter we’d had since we were kids had led to this moment. We were finally showing each other our dark sides—the shadowy, twisted carnival in our souls no one had ever been invited to.
This was a golden ticket, personally handed over by our very own Willy Wonka. Us. Alone. Where no one could find us.
She was seeing this one through.
“Fuck you, Vaughn.” Her voice shook.
The third time she’d told me this.
Each time, I had a different answer.
“Gladly, Good Girl.”
With a well-mannered smirk on my face, I tore her top off in one, swift movement—like a gash. A little inaccuracy could’ve caused her serious injury. She yelped, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning back. She clutched her midriff, her shaky fingers looking for a wound. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and looked down, examining the damage.
Her skin was milk and honey, smooth as freshly fallen snow. She blinked, looked up at me.
“Still not turned on?” I asked.
“No.” She enunciated the word venomously, waiting to see what I’d do next.
I laughed. She did, too. The crazy, humorless laugh of two people who understand each other perfectly, yet are stuck in a world that makes no sense to them. I never thought I’d have this with a girl. Or a guy. Or any fucking human, for that matter. Not even my parents fully understood me.
I pushed her shoulders, and she slid over the bench, lying down.
I put the chisel to her jeans and used it to pop the three buttons free, tugging the denim down her thighs with my free hand. Still looking her dead in the eye, I clipped her panties from each side, letting them fall beneath her, and put the pointy end of the chisel to her pussy, waiting for her to stop me.
“Not horny for this blade, baby?”
“Not even a bit.” Her eyes leveled with mine, daring me.
Show me more of your crazy. My veins hummed with exhilaration. It’s turning me the fuck on.
I was so hard I didn’t even have time to be worried about what I was about to do to her. With her.
I looked down and again noticed her tattoo.
Ars longa, vita brevis. I could finally read it, and I knew exactly what it meant, why she’d put it there. Something inspired me to kiss it. I did. She shuddered.
“There will be other pleasures worth chasing, and they’ll have nothing to do with art,” I whispered into her skin, unable to pull away from it.
“Show me,” she rasped.
I slid the chisel into her pussy, stopping a quarter of the way in. I wasn’t going to hurt her, not really, no matter how much she craved it. I found her hot and wet and ready. Drenched. Her cunt produced wet sounds that drove me mad and made my dick so hard I got dizzy from lack of blood to my other organs. The slightest stroke of her hand and I was going to jizz like a broken sprinkler system in a country club. This wasn’t going to be a twenty-minute session of virtuous lovemaking. I’d be lucky not to come in my goddamn jeans.
Len braced herself on her forearms and watched my hand sliding in and out of her with the chisel, keeping the penetration shallow. She closed her eyes, her head falling back, and shivered, her entire body blossoming in goosebumps.
I wrapped my injured arm around her neck, bringing her closer, kissing her slow and hot and deep, getting her all sex-crazed. Her mouth slid across my wrist, like I knew it would, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets the minute her mouth touched my blood.
“God…” Her voice cracked like an egg, spilling with lust.
“God, what?”
“God…have sex with me.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do,” I lamented. “Say the magic word.”
“Please?”
“Fuck. Fuck me.”
I was buying time so I wouldn’t come prematurely before my briefs were shoved down to my ankles. She closed her eyes, drawing a shaky breath. I slid the chisel half an inch deeper into her pussy. She was so wet I doubted it was enough for her. She couldn’t squeeze around it, choke it with her walls. No. My cock was the only thing that could do the trick, and we both knew it.
“Please fuck me.” The words fell from her mouth, which tasted salty and warm, like my blood. I kissed her again.
“Why?” I asked, my lips moving down her neck, sucking. “You’re not turned on. Seems pretty pointless.”
“Vaughn,” she moaned.