There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(73)

What would it be like to strip myself bare?

It feels like destruction. Like immolation.

What if I’m wrong?

Could the pleasure of intimacy outweigh the danger?

This is a question perched on a cliff. No peering over—I’ll only find the bottom by jumping.

Mara stares right back at me, ferocious, unashamed. Certain of what she wants and how to get it.

I’ve never held back from what I wanted.

Not for morals. Not for laws. I’ll be damned if I’ll do it for fear.

I’ve taken a life, but never shared a life.

I feel my hand lifting over the covers, crossing the space between us, cupping the fine curve of her jaw while my thumb rests on her full lower lip.

“I see you,” I say.

“I know you do,” Mara replies, quietly. “And I want to see you.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

She doesn’t blink or even hesitate.

“It’s not a wish. It’s a requirement.”





32





Mara





Cole drives me home early in the morning. I’m planning to catch a couple hours’ sleep, then head over to the studio to work.

The intimacy between us is fragile but real, like a thin rim of ice across a lake. I don’t know if it’s strong enough to bear weight just yet . . . but I’m already walking across.

He pulls up to the curb, flipping the car around so I can exit on the passenger side.

“Well, thanks for . . . whatever that was,” I say, half smiling, half blushing.

I touch the handle of the door, planning to climb out.

“Wait,” Cole says, grabbing me by the back of the neck and pulling me back inside instead. He kisses me, deep and warm, with just a hint of a bite as his teeth catch my lower lip, before releasing me.

The kiss makes my head spin. His scent clings to my clothes: steel shavings, machine oil, cold Riesling, expensive cologne. And Cole himself. The man and the monster. Layered together like sediment, like cake.

“I’ll see you later,” I say, breathlessly.

“I’ll definitely see you,” Cole says, a hint of a smile on his lips.

Knowing that he watches me on that studio camera gives me a perverse thrill. I wonder what he’ll do if I slowly strip off my clothes while I’m working. If I paint completely naked. Will he come join me?

I’m floating up the sagging steps to the row house.

It’s so early that I don’t hear a single person creaking around on the upper floors. No scent of burning coffee just yet.

That’s fine—I’m too tired to chat. I can barely haul myself up the next two flights of steps to my attic room. I might need to sleep more than a couple of hours. My body is so obliterated that the thought of my mattress and pillow has become intensely erotic.

I grasp the ancient brass handle and give it a twist. It slips through my hand, stiff and unyielding.

“What the fuck,” I mutter, turning it again.

The door’s locked. From the inside.

In my sleep-befuddled brain, all I can think is that accidentally I locked it on my way out, or the handle is broken. Everything in this house is so decrepit that the shower, the furnace, the outlets, and the stove are constantly going on the fritz. We’ve long since learned not to bother trying to call our landlord. Either Heinrich fixes what breaks, or we just live with it.

In this case, I might be able to fix it myself.

Poking the edge of my thumbnail into the lock, I jiggle the handle until I hear the tumblers click.

“Yes,” I hiss, pushing the door open with a mournful creak.

I’m hurrying in, anticipating the long fall onto the mattress, until something stops me short.

The bed is already occupied.

Not just occupied—drenched. The sheets, blankets, and mattress are soaked and dripping. Water pools on the bare boards all around.

And there on the pillow . . . Erin. Red hair spread out in a halo, damp and wavy. Skin paler than milk. Flowers framing her face: green willow boughs, scarlet poppies, forget-me-nots as blue as her wide-open eyes.

I’m crossing the space, falling down beside her, feeling the water soak into my skirt as I lift her cold white hand.

I look down into her face, somehow believing that she can still see me, that I can bring her back if I keep calling out her name.

My shouts echo in the tiny space, but have no effect on her. No squeeze from her fingers. Not even a flutter of an eyelash.

She’s dead. Hours gone. Already beginning to stiffen.

I drop her hand, overwhelmed by its rubbery chill. It no longer feels like Erin, or anything attached to her.

“What’s going on?” someone says from the doorway. “Why are you yelling?”

I turn toward Joanna. She stands there in her pajamas, hair still wrapped up in her silk sleeping scarf. I’m grateful it’s her and not one of the others, because she keeps our house running, she always knows what to do.

Except right now.

Joanna gapes at Erin with the same stunned expression as me. She’s petrified in place, ten thousand years passing in an instant.

She doesn’t ask if Erin’s okay. She saw the truth sooner than I did. Or she was more willing to accept it.

Frank comes up behind her, unable to see because Joanna is blocking the doorway.