Empire of Sin(Empire #2)(39)

“Consider yourself lucky.” The leaner man tells me before he follows the other one. His jacket flies behind him and I catch a glimpse of something metallic tucked in his pants.

A gun.

I narrow my eyes on their backs as they disappear down the hall. There’s something about them. What, I don’t know.

Anastasia must’ve felt it, too, when she was cornered by them, because even now that they’re gone, her fingers are digging into my jacket and she’s still behind me, trembling uncontrollably.

I turn around and the scene that greets me makes me pause.

Tears stream down her cheeks, fogging her glasses, and she appears so helpless, so scared and small that I want to find those two men and shoot them with their own guns.

“They’re gone,” I say in a cool voice, trying to make her feel at ease.

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Only moisture cascades silently down her cheeks as she stands there like a statue.

“Anastasia…”

“Don’t…don’t…please…please don’t call me that, please, I’m begging you…I’ll do anything…just…just…”

“Hey, relax. It’s fine.”

She stares up at me then, her tears sliding to her chin and neck with the motion. “It’s not…it will not be. Nothing is fine. They’re watching me…that lady from the restaurant was watching me and now, they’re here and it’s never going to be fine.”

A few passers-by watch us questioningly and though I’m not sure if she’s focused on them, I can tell that she’s well and truly on the path of having a breakdown. Otherwise, she wouldn’t let people see her in this state.

So I grab her by the arm and drag her behind me. She doesn’t protest as I guide her out through the restaurant’s back exit and release her against the wall.

We’re in a small alleyway that’s hidden from sight. It’s not so bright and there aren’t people watching her every move.

But she’s still crying silently, her body stiff.

I reach out for her glasses and remove them. She tries to fight me, to keep them in place, because they’re her camouflage from the world. Something she can hide behind and hope no one will see her.

“Give them back,” she whispers.

“So you can return to your bubble?”

She glares at me. “What’s wrong with bubbles? They’re safe and no one hurts you when you’re in them.”

“They’re a delusion that will disappear sooner or later. All you’ll be left with is more suffering.”

“I’ll deal with that when it happens.”

“Or you can deal with it now instead of hiding.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m fine.”

I retrieve my phone, open the camera, then place it in front of her face. “Does that look like someone who’s fine?”

Her lips part and tremble and a fresh wave of tears gather in her fake eyes. I hate that she changed the color, that I can barely see a glimpse of the ethereal blue I stared into that first time I met her.

The blue that tells a mystic story without her having to say a word.

She pushes the phone away and stares to the side. When she speaks, her voice is so low, it’s almost unintelligible. “Sometimes, hiding is the only option people like me have. So let me be.”

I drop her glasses in my pocket and place one hand on the wall by her head, then grab her by the throat with the other one and lean into her. “See, that’s the problem. I can’t.”

Her breath hitches as my chest is glued to hers until we’re both feeling the booming of heartbeats and the skyrocketing pulse.

Until we’re both trapped in the present moment.

“What are you doing—”

Her words are cut off when I lower my head and lick her tears. I drink the salty taste and her anguish, fear, and anxiety. I take it all, my tongue sucking at her scorching hot cheeks, then her nose and her chin, and I finish with her mouth.

My lips brush against hers and I lick them, nibble on them, reveling in each of her shudders, tremors, and small moans, and then I’m thrusting my tongue into her mouth.

The same tongue that tasted her tears is now making her drink them, too, feed on them from me.

My hold tightens on her throat as I kiss her slow at first, then hard and fast and so out of control that she’s gasping in my mouth.

She’s wheezing for air, her fingers holding on to my jacket with everything in her might, and when I open my eyes to stare into hers, they’re closed.

Her head is tilted back and she’s letting me ravish her, my tongue feasting on hers and my teeth biting and nibbling and sending tiny sparks of pain through her.

That’s what I do, after all. I’m a master of pain. Pleasure can’t happen without it; there needs to be a balance between the good and the bad.

The pretty and the ugly.

And Anastasia doesn’t seem to mind it, the bites between the licks, the nibbles between the sucks. If anything, she’s getting lost in it as deeply as I am.

The need that explodes in my groin is unmistakable. I’m so hard that it’s painful, so painful that my trousers can’t contain it. She must feel my erection against her soft belly, because her eyes open wide, even though my tongue is playing with hers, even though she’s still shuddering like when I licked away her tears.