“Stop it right this minute.” I tip her face up and force her gaze where it belongs. On me. “You were never pathetic. Not even close. You were a kid stuck with a monster. A kid who needed help. There’s nothing pathetic about that. That’s called being a survivor. It’s what I saw when I looked at you then, what I still see when I look at you today. Do you hear me?”
She nods, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye.
“Is that why you didn’t want to tell me who you were?” I kiss along the salty track on her cheek. “Were you nervous about my reaction?”
“In a way, yes. At first, I just wanted you to be curious about me. But deep down, I think I was afraid of this moment. Apparently, I worried over nothing.” Lilith sighs, leaning her cheek into one of my hands. “Thank you, Alaric. For saving me that day. For making sure she couldn’t get to me. For sitting with me in the ICU. I had no idea back then that you weren’t supposed to do that, so, really, thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for.” I scoff, pressing my forehead to hers. “I didn’t do anything. She hurt you for years, and I wasn’t there.”
“You weren’t supposed to. Look, Alaric, it’s not your fault.” The second tear rolling down her cheek splits my heart in two. “It’s no one’s fault, not even the system’s.”
My body shakes with barely restrained rage. “Of course it is.”
“No, it isn’t. Mom was a lawyer at one of the biggest criminal law firms in New York. She had some of the most violent people in the city on speed dial. That’s why, whenever my teachers or counselors questioned a black eye or a broken arm, she either bribed them or used the names of her clients as a threat.” She lifts her hands to cover my wrists, as if noticing my mounting fury. “Her private physician, other than salivating all over her money, was terrified of her too. Even the people in our building were afraid of her. I think the ones who called the cops that night were new tenants who’d just moved in and had no idea who she was.”
“You’re telling me everyone knew? Everyone?” My chest heaves, my anger so consuming that black dots cloud my vision. “And they did nothing?”
“Would you have gone against the mafia?” she asks. “Against hitmen, drug dealers, and human traffickers?”
“Yes.” If I weren’t a murderer who dealt with Renata behind the scenes, that’s exactly what I would’ve done. “I would’ve hired security for you and for whatever foster home you ended up in. Two, three, ten of them. But letting you stay with her? Fuck no.”
More tears soak my palms before she whispers, “Thank you.”
I draw her face to mine, kissing her as if she might disappear.
She almost did. That reminder alone turns me into a beast.
I’m not tentative or considerate like I’ve been over the past three days as I nip at her bottom lip.
Lilith doesn’t shy away from it. Moaning, she scratches at my wrists and pulls me closer, telling me she’s done needing to be handled gently.
“Come home with me.” I grind my hips into her, rubbing my hard cock over the softest parts of Lilith.She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.“I need you in my bed. Under my covers.”
“Really?” There’s excitement and another emotion I can’t place in her voice.
Doesn’t matter.
She’s safe and happy.
Mine.
“Yes.” I want her scent all over my sheets. I also need to deal with Harold. “Now.” My hands are greedy, sliding down Lilith’s neck, pinching her nipples over her sweatshirt. Then I remember. “Fuck. I have to chart. Give me a few minutes, and we’ll be out of here.”
“As long as you let me rub your back while you do it.” Those swollen, wet lips, how they curl into a wicked smirk. And her nails on my neck. Torture. “Please, Dr. Lockwood?”
“You know I can’t say no to that.” Another kiss. She’s alive. So fucking alive. “You’re here.”
As if understanding what I mean, her smile softens, and she says, “And I’m not going anywhere.”
18
LILITH
Nerves skitter up my spine when I see the doorman from the first time I was in Alaric’s building. He’s right there, sitting behind the desk. Any minute now, he might lift his head. He might recognize me.
In the near future, once I tell Alaric I’ve been stalking him for a while, I won’t care.
But today is not that day.