Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(49)

I smiled in spite of myself and turned to him. Paul was fully dressed, thank God. My lust level hadn’t lowered that much since Megan’s nymph routine. Maybe that was what her whole show was about. She was my fluffer. If that was the case, she was damn good at her job. Even clothed Paul was delectable, standing there with his tousled brown hair all wet and a smirk on his face. I was always a sucker for a smirk on a man. But Carol would be slightly nervous and uncomfortable, so I hung my head and began wringing my hands in my lap. “Why? Because I’m simply irresistible? Because you think the universe is telling you to?” I asked meekly.

“You don’t believe either of those are true?” Paul asked as he sat beside me on the small bed. He made sure not to touch me but remained close enough that I could still sense his body heat and smell the lavender on him. Fuck, Megan was good at her job, I thought as I scooted away a little.

“I…think you believe them for some unknown reason,” I said truthfully. “I mean everyone around here’s convinced the universe wants us together after knowing each other five minutes.” Which was quite clever of them to keep repeating. If you hear a “fact” over and over again, the brain starts to believe it.

“Are you not attracted to me?” he asked sadly.



“It’s not that,” I said, glancing at his almost pained expression. “It isn’t. I’m just trying to understand how you know what the universe wants.”

“Because when I saw you last night, you took my breath away. Your energy, your radiance is like a beacon of light calling to me.”

“Did you actually see this light, or…?” I shrugged.

He chuckled. “Here.” He held up his hand and moved it toward my face. I flinched. “I’m not going to touch you. I will never touch you until I know you want me to. Just…” He kept his hand centimeters from my cheek so I could sense his body heat. “Feel that heat? Feel me? That’s my aura. It’s my energy. You can’t see it, but it’s there. And yours is…” He closed his eyes. “Conflicted. Nervous.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “Hopeful.”

“I…don’t feel anything but your heat,” I said. “How do you sense all those other things? Is it because you’ve been with the group so long?”

He lowered his hand. “In part. Mathias said I was a natural empath. I can sense what others feel in the moment. Mathias just helped me hone the skill.”

“How?”

“Meditation. Practice. Of course, the best time to really sense the measure of a person is when you’re making love,” he said with that seductive smirk again. “When it’s just the two of us, exposed, vulnerable, at our purest animal selves.”

“So you’ve…practiced on a lot of people, then? Did Mathias or Megan suggest you should practice on me?”

His face twisted almost in horror. “Is that what you think?” he asked, aghast. “That I’m some easily influenced idiot?” His mouth flopped open a few times. “Do you think so little of yourself?”



“What?”

“Do you really think the only reason I’d be interested in you is if someone put me up to it?” he asked, suddenly sad. For me.

“Well, you just said he told you to practice empathy by having sex with lots of people. He—”

“Mathias never told me who to sleep with,” he said vehemently. “Not ever. And certainly not with you. All he or anyone ever did was tell me who he thought might be on the same wavelength as me. Who might need my help getting in touch with who they truly are and what they can accomplish. Everything I do, I choose to do,” he said, his voice hard, “because the universe guides me to.”

Maybe he truly didn’t see it. Maybe the only way he could continue on was to live deep in denial. I’d been there. My heart went out to him. He’d probably been used and abused all his life in the most violent of ways. But a beautiful, gentle monster was still a monster, and the more I uncovered about Mathias, the more I saw the fangs. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said, taking his hand. It was the only kindness I could provide without blowing my cover. What he truly needed was intense therapy and time away from users like Mathias. “I-I don’t know Mathias, so if I misspoke, I’m sorry.”

“He would never use me or anyone like that,” he said with utter certainty. “He saved me from people like that.”

“He did?”

“I know you saw the scars.” He flipped over his damaged wrist. “My dad used to put cigarettes out on my chest when I breathed too loud when he had a hangover. Even when he didn’t have a hangover,” Paul said, hanging his head. “Mom OD’d when I was five, so it was just us and some junkie girlfriends of his until he killed a guy over drugs and went to prison. If possible, foster care was even worse. At least Dad never forced me to suck him off like one of my foster fathers and a counselor at the group home. I ran off when I was fifteen. Of course, the streets weren’t any better. I abused my body. I sold it. Then I met this couple who took me in. Gave me my own room. Clothes. I thought they loved me. I loved them. But they used me too. I was a drug mule to Canada, and when I got caught, they left me to rot. I spent three years in prison after they ran.” He looked down. “My cellmate raped me. That’s when I tried to kill myself. And when I got out, I couldn’t get a job. Mathias found me when I was hustling the streets of Pittsburgh eight months ago. I thought he wanted to fuck me, but he just took me out for dinner and told me from the moment he saw me he knew I was a sensitive soul with so much wasted potential. We spent all night talking, and he listened to my every horror, every fear.