Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 471

I stared at him. The words landed one by one, heavy and precise, and the worst part was that I could not find a single one to argue with. That was exactly what I was to him. What I had always been. A body in his bed, bought with a contract and a promise to keep Tasha safe. I had simply been stupid enough to forget it for a day.

I pulled my wrist free, slowly this time, and walked away.

I did not go to my room. I went to Tasha's door first, drawn there by something I could not name, and I stood in the hallway outside it and listened. She was crying. Not the loud, ragged sobs from before. The quiet kind. The kind that came out of a body that had stopped hoping anyone would hear. The sound went through me like a blade.

I could not go in. What would I tell her? That I was sorry? That I had spent the whole day at his side, laughing at his jokes, letting him hold my hand and open doors for me, letting myself believe he was something other than what he was? That I had been so busy admiring the shape of him in a suit that I had missed what he was capable of? I had sworn on my sister's grave that I would protect her girl, and I had handed her to a monster with a smile on my face and told her to be happy.

I turned and went to my own room, closed the door, and sat on the edge of my bed. And I cried.

I cried until my head ached and my throat burned, and when the knock came at my door I had just enough time to scrub my face with the back of my hand before the door opened.

Sparrow stood in the doorway. The room was dim, lit only by the streetlight bleeding through the curtains, and he reached in and flipped the switch without asking, flooding the room with light. I flinched like a woman caught stealing.

"What do you want?" My voice came out wrecked, and I hated him for hearing it. "Get out of my room."

He did not get out. He walked in, slow and deliberate, and stopped in the middle of the floor. "Let me tend to your wound."

"My wound?" I laughed, bitter and sharp. "Tasha is the one covered in wounds. Because of you. Not me."

I stood there holding the bottle, making no move.

"What are you waiting for?" He raised a brow. "Go on. Apply it, so it will not scar by tomorrow."

I looked at him, and my voice came out flat. "How am I supposed to apply this balm to my own body when Tasha is bloody and suffering? I will take it to her. I will help her feel better."

I started for the door, and his hand closed on my arm and pulled me back. The third time tonight he had laid hands on me, and I was too tired to fight it.