Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(6)
I thought, perhaps, she was merely grateful I’d lied to the police. Indebted. Afraid of this strange creature she’d saved.
Do you love me, Leo?
I try not to. I try not to!
I knew she’d stopped trying when she pushed a scalpel into my hand, begging me to just be Aeron again. And then, of course, I’d won. I let Leo back in because I trusted her, as far as I could ever reach to do so; she could never just walk away from me, not with the things I know about her or the way we seem oddly stitched together. But another assistant? Hire a stranger, without leverage?
What f*cking planet is she on?
***
By the time I finish all the admin I have to do on top of everything else, it’s way past nine p.m. We broke the Blood Honey story; I stood in front of the twin screens in my office and let the buzz sink in. My newscasters were sullen, their eyes blank and glassy, and we featured the eccentric psychoanalyst from NYU with the crazy afro…it was perfect. Even if there’s no other murder, we’ll be picking this carcass for weeks. I’d be tempted to stay later, watch it all play out, but Leo is already waiting at my apartment; I sent Ash and Ethan away skiing this week, so she’s permitted. So rarely do I have her in my own space. Alone. In the dark.
Old wounds along my belly prickle at the thought of her in my kitchen, where she’ll stand over the stove in nothing but one of my shirts. She made a habit of this when nursing me; the sight of her bent just slightly was an excellent incentive to haul my ass off the couch.
All through the apartment, a film of smoke hangs in the air as if Leo left a trail in her wake. It spirals from the spitting griddle pan on the stove, where two fat steaks are already branded in patterns of ashy black. Leo lingers behind the refrigerator door, bathed in a halo of mellow gold; she stands on tiptoe to reach salad bags on the top shelf. When she turns, clad in a tailored white shirt of mine, her nipples are pebbled beneath the cotton. Cold body. Cold girl. Does she think now that I want this?
“You’re late,” she says, barely looking up as she positions herself by the chopping block and tears into a bag of lettuce.
“I had two hundred and forty-two emails to answer before I could leave.” I drop my bag on the glass table, step out of my loafers. Then I pad over to her, peer over her shoulder, wrap my arms around her waist. Draw her up close. Inhale, exhale. “Really. That exact number.” The contrast between the cool floor under my feet and the soft heat of her body, all pressed into mine, has my nerves coarse and sensitive; she stiffens when I drop my mouth to her throat, when I run my tongue along her skin until I find the firm rise of a vein.
She rolls her shoulders, making a show of pulling away from me. Maybe she still feels like she ought to. Or maybe she just knows how much it gets me off. “Is this how you played house as a kid? Because that’s just creepy.”
“I never played house.”
“Too busy hacking up kittens?”
“Uh-huh. And all the other clichés.” I make patterns on her skin in saliva; polka dots, meandering ribbons, and X marks the spot. After a morning in death’s company, I find myself drawn to the slow throb of her pulse. Reverent in the wake of each tiny tremor. If I press hard enough, I can feel it—it’s like a hymn with perfect bass.
“What did you do, then?” she asks.
“I don’t know, Leo. Normal shit. School. Sports. Homework. Anything with computer games.” I was forced to act normal. And forced to see it all in an abnormal way. We don’t talk about my childhood; the last thing I want is for Leo to give me the Poor Orphan Aeron look. “I like the shirt,” I murmur, my fingers tangling into the fabric and brushing against her naked thighs.
“You’re as bad as a puppy,” she mutters, amused.
“Can safely say that’s the first time I’ve ever been described like that.”
She turns to flash me a small smile. “First times are kind of your thing, huh?”
“You make that sound incredibly cheesy.” I wait for her to turn back to the salad she’s preparing, and walk my fingers up her thigh until I find the dressing on her right buttock. Over faint scars I go, my pulse fluttering at the feel of smoothly knitted skin; the dressing is dry in comparison. Time to come off, I think. Leo gasps at the pressure I put on her almost-healed wound, but she stays there, luxuriating in the jagged threat of pain.
I’ve cultivated such skill since I met her. The more I teach myself to be human, the more she pretends that I am. Little is said about the beast in me; she tries her best to humor it like any other guilty pleasure. Still, I smell the fear on her when my touch grows too insistent, too rough. Home is where the heart is, but fear is where the heart can barely remember home.
We eat at the table and talk with our eyes. The first time I took Leo for dinner, she mocked the way I watched her eat; now it’s become a private joke of sorts, and she’ll pretend to be coy by hiding her face or chewing with comic slowness. I’ve never had a private joke with anyone before. Tuija used to bring up shit I didn’t want to talk about, but I’m not sure she knew the difference.
Leo brought a suitcase over the night Ethan and Ash flew out to Vermont. It lies spilled across my bedroom floor in casual disarray; not because she’s the slovenly kind, but because we end up tripping our way through to bed most nights, a trail of laundry and paperwork meandering behind us. Tonight is no different. No work talk, no pleasantries—she knows what I want.