Filed to story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“I love you, Teagan,” he says, kissing the side of my head.
“I love you, too.”
“I’ll get you something to wear. Do you want my clothes or your clothes?”
“Yours,” I tell him.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
After he leaves the bathroom, I climb down from the counter and clean myself up. I forget about the hair until I see it there in the sink.
It’s a weird feeling.
“Don’t be mad at me,” Declan says when he sees me staring at it.
“I’m not.”
He helps me into a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and then we return to the main cabin. I wrap that same blanket around my shoulders, and before I can sit in the seat next to him, he pulls me into his lap again.
“Declan?”
“Yeah?”
“What if I can’t stop hurting people?” I ask him. “What if I can’t stop fantasizing about all of the ways I could kill people with just the things in the room? I’ve done itor I’ve almost done itso many times. It doesn’t feel bad anymore. I’m not good.”
“I do it, too, Teagan. Not quite like thatbut I do. After I killed for the first time, all I thought about was doing it again. I’d be walking down the street and thinking, what would happen if I pushed this person in front of a bus? No one could stop me. I could make it look like an accident. Participating in the rituals sated it momentarily, but ultimately, only made the urge stronger. Killing doesn’t help. But what you ultimately want is to be free, right?”
“Well yeah.”
“If you let your violent urges control you, you aren’t free,” he says. “And you won’t be free; we’ll get caught. But I’ll make your life easy, and you can cut me whenever you want.”
“I can?”
“If you’re sad or you’re hurting, you can take it out on me. I owe you that. If you need it, you can have it. I told youyou can have whatever you want from me. Maybe we can make up a new game.”
“Like what?”
“You want to hurt me? I want to hurt you, too, Teagan. I told you I got hard seeing you on that roofand you know what it did to me when I cut you in that hotel bathroom.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah, I do.”
“So we’ll learn boundaries. It’ll be fun.”
I nod. “Yeah yeah, okay.”
“Good girl.” He nuzzles his face against mine before kissing my lips. “Is there anything else you’re worried about?” he asks.
“Yeah one more thing,” I say, looking at Luca. “He doesn’t look good. He’s sweating.”
And it’s cold in the cabin, too.
“It’s the drugs,” Declan says. “The mood swings, toohe’ll be okay. I’ll give him a little more when he gets up. We’ll get him through it, Teagan. He’s young and strong. We have a doctor in Grodno, and we’ll do it right.”
“Okay.”
“You should try to sleep. We’ll be there soon.”
“Maybe if you sing to me, I’ll be able to sleep,” I tell him.
He laughs. “You want me to sing? I don’t think I’ve sung anything since we recorded your song.”
“You said I could have whatever I wanted.”
“Mmm okay, true. What do you want me to sing?”
“Something I’ve never heard before.”
“Teagan’s so pretty. I love her a lot. While she’s asleep, I take pictures of her butt,” he sings.
I laugh hard. “Now I guess I know why Luca writes the songs.”
“What? I thought it was pretty good.”
“Do you really do that?”
“Nah. Only like twice. Seven times max,” he says. We both laugh, trying to stay quiet so as not to wake Luca. When it finally dies down, he says, “I haven’t laughed in a long time. I missed you so much, Teagan.”
“I missed you, too.”
“Close your eyes, kitten. By this time tomorrow, everything’s going to be different. We’ll all be okay.”
“No more beige,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
“No, baby. No more beige.”
eighteen months later
“Hey, kitten,” Declan whispers.
“Hey,” I say, stretching, my voice raspy from sleep. “You’re back.”
“Of course,” he says, brushing my hair away from my face before kissing me. “It’s your big day.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I guess so. What time is it?”
“It’s five-thirty,” he says. “We have some time.”
He brings his lips to mine again, and I close my eyes, savoring it.
“You smell so good,” I tell him, running my hands over his bare chest and down his abs. His formerly flawless skin iswellstill flawless to me. But his body is scarred now, just like mine.
He’s been gone for the past five days, and it’s been months since we’ve been apart for that long. Beneath the sheets, I’m naked. Declan’s hands run down my body and over my bare tits before one hand grips the back of my thigh and hitches it around his waist.
He rubs my clit with two fingers, deeply but torturously slow, and I melt into the mattress, breaking away from the kiss.
“Fuck ” I whisper.
“You like that?”
“You know I do you know what I like.”
“Are you getting wet for me, kitten?” he whispers, pulling my earlobe through his teeth.
“Yes ”
