Empire of Sin (Empire #2)(9)

He’s naked. All of him.

I didn’t see him naked when we had sex.

No, not sex.

That was definitely fucking. Harsh, raw, and primitive fucking.

My core still tingles in remembrance. It feels tender, too, just like my neck that’s bruised from all the marks he left behind, but I don’t focus on that. My attention is stolen by something far more important.

Tattoos.

He has a lot of them.

On his upper shoulder and bicep, there’s a full, angry-looking samurai as if he’s about to go to battle. The details on the warrior’s face are striking, haunting even.

And I can’t stop staring at him, at the darkened look in his eyes, as if he, too, doesn’t like eye contact.

For some reason, I didn’t think someone as put-together as this British stranger would have tattoos, but seeing that he does adds even more mystery to him.

Businessmen don’t usually have tattoos—not the ones I know, anyway. Unless his background is different from what I’ve been picturing.

I shake my head.

I really, really shouldn’t be curious about him. It was a one-time thing and it’s now over.

The clock on the wall ticks half past three in the morning. I can drive back before sunrise and sneak back into my room.

Slowly, I shift from under the covers and wince. I’m so sore, it hurts to budge an inch.

He must’ve cleaned me since there’s nothing between my thighs. Not even my own stickiness. He covered me, too, which is a kind gesture I wouldn’t have expected from this stranger. He seemed like the “fuck them then leave them” type of man.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

I carefully put on my torn dress, grimacing every few seconds when my core throbs. It takes me some time to work around the ruined dress.

The brute stranger must’ve ripped it when he was removing it.

It’s not only a slight rip. There’s a long gash on the side that extends to my hipbone. I can’t possibly walk outside like this.

So I grab his jacket and put it on. It swallows me and the dress, but it’s better than nothing. His scent fills my nostrils and I try not to think of that or what happened a few hours ago.

It’ll just make this complicated.

And I don’t need complicated.

“I’m sure you have many of these, so you won’t mind if I take it,” I whisper. “If you do mind, you shouldn’t have ripped my only red dress.”

He doesn’t even stir and I don’t know why I’m disappointed. I shouldn’t be.

I’m subconsciously reaching for him—or, my hand is. I just want to touch his hair once, see if it’s as soft as it looks.

He shifts and I quickly retract my hand.

What the hell was I thinking?

I can’t touch him. I have to completely erase him from my memories.

Not only for my own good, but also for his.

If my family finds out about what we’ve done, they’ll kill him. No questions asked.

It’s why I stayed a virgin until twenty.

But I’m not anymore.

And soon, I’ll be free.

“Thank you for crossing this off my list,” I murmur. “I hope we never meet again.”

And with that, I grab my heels and silently step out of the room.





3





KNOX





Gray shadows creep up on me.

Their ghostly hands reach out to my neck and wrap a noose around it. My trachea jerks and crushes to pieces as the distorted voice whispers.

“Look at me.”

My fingers flex, but I don’t reach for the hands that are stealing my air. If I touch them, they will force my eyes open, they will make me see.

“Baby boy…” The voice is less distorted now, honeyed, almost in a singsong. “Let me look at those eyes…”

Fuck no.

No.

If I don’t look, I’ll be safe. If I don’t look, I won’t know what will happen and it’ll all be over faster.

Or that’s what I believe as the ghostly harsh fingers jam against my neck and crash the one thing that’s giving me air.

“If you don’t look, it’ll hurt more.” The voice is still honeyed, cool, soothing almost, and I would’ve believed it if I didn’t know what hides behind it.

“No…”

“Knox, look at me.”

“No.”

“I’m going to hit you and make sure to leave marks, you little jerk.”

“No!”

That’s when my eyes open.

There’s a ringing, loud and constant and without any breaks.

At first, I think it’s all in my head. The ringing. The pounding against my skull. The fucking shadows.

My head is the place they go to when they decide to visit me occasionally, just to make sure they still have a hold on me. That the little boy inside me that I’ve been slowly killing over the past twenty years isn’t dead.

That he still breathes, still closes his eyes, and has fucking nightmares about the shadows of the past.

He still lives with his demons.

But the ringing isn’t in my head. It’s from somewhere beside me.

My phone.

I snatch it from the side table, throw an arm over my eyes to darken my vision. Light is blinding in my post-nightmare state. In a way, I become one with my shadows, thirsty for darkness and unable to exist outside of it. So, light and I were never really close friends.