#silver why don’t you have a last name my god aaaaaaa

[starry-night-rose]

Some height comparisons of my oc x canon ships!

I love oc x oc ships but there’s something about oc x canon ships that just are so much fun

I don’t care if Malleus’ horns add to his height and that he’s not really 202 cm, he is 202 to me >:(

[themarginalthinker]

The Three Barters of Marco Bodt

otherwise titled ‘Marco Bodt’s Canine Curse’. too campy for this story ehhhh

@bringobaggins this got longggg

in case any of you were wondering, this is  totally based off of a silly little au I decided APPARENTLY DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH ANGST AAAAAAA so I wrote this for my friend in like,,,,an hour. :> 

if any of ya’ll are wonder what I’m referring to, check out this and this right here. Essentially, Marco done messed up and now he’s cursed to be but a doggo forever but Jean’s kiss broke the curse somehow. this is his story. 

He'd been one of the middle sons of a middle son. Their family was larger, and their parents never had much more then the very basics to keep them all afloat. 

Then, in a crazy bet, his father won a small heard of sheep and the dog to heard them from a neighbor and their suddenly their family wasn't so bad off. But the dog wasn't well trained, and Marco wasn't good at controlling the animal, and in one fell swoop, a nasty accident, the dog misunderstood Marco's orders and drove all the sheep off a cliff to their deaths. The family was now...even poorer.

 Marco thinks of this as his fault, and it eats at him for weeks until he comes up with a harebrained solution. 

The witch that lives in the woods. It was risky...sometimes she helped, other times she hindered. And her prices were high, though not for want of gold and silver. She wanted...other things for her services. 

 The first time Marco went, he left a whole man, with an empty field over grown for lack of livestock. When he came back...he was half-blind, and the old, family-less farmer down the way had died and left all his land and animals for anyone who would have them. 

 And so began the three barters of Marco Bodt.

Marco is hesitating a little at the table now, playing with his fondue stick and the spread (which Jean has barely touched since Marco started talking) because he's not..sure how to continue. He knows his own past..but he's never had to tell it to someone before. Or even everything thats happened AFTER he was left to roam the world, alone and confused, wit no-one but other animals to talk to (who, as he's told Jean, don't make very good conversationalists.)

 So, he tries to keep it simple. His parents were so worried about him - asking what had happened to his eye, why the place where it had been was not bleeding, concerned over their newfound good fortune of the ability to claim the dead farmer's land for their own now...but Marco doesn't admit anything he doesn't have to. 

He keeps quiet, and goes back to tending the animals and watching over his younger siblings. Then, a few months later, disaster strikes for a second time. It's getting into the colder parts of fall, when there is little warmth in the sun, and the leaves of red and gold are losing their brilliance. Marco is working on fixing a hole in the fence where some of the cows got out before so they don't lose the rest of them before he goes looking for the ones who got lost, when he hears the screaming. As fast as he can, he abandons his work and runs into the woods, following the sounds of terror and - splashing? 

 It turns out it's one of the local boys - a small, frail, bookish boy by family name of Arlert. The village calls the family heretics since they don't often go to church, and collect a number of books most of the outlying counties had banned and forbidden the buying and selling of - Armin, the boy's, father is an inventor of sorts, making toys and gizmos for the children, and Marco sometimes catches his eye as he's selling his family's wares and wool in town. 

They were something of  friends, and as Marco sees, the old, old bridge that the smaller boy usually uses to cross the deep stream to get to Marco's house, has finally given out, the boards broken and sending whoever was walking across it into the icy depths of the water. Marco, of course, without thought for his own safety, immediately goes after him, jumping right into the deadly cold to save a boy who was really more of a Sunday acquaintance who Marco would never admit occupied his mind on more then one lonesome night...   

 Armin is small though, and even though Marco rushes the both of them home as fast as he can, there is little he can do to stop the dreadful blue creeping into the boy's fingers, the way he stopped shivering long minutes ago, and his eyes blinked closed. Marco is desperate, asking his mother if there is anything she can do to heal him, warm him up again. 

 There isn't, and Armin Arlert lies dead on Marco's bed. 

 So...that night, after the aggrieved parents of the well-read boy come and go in tears and confusion and the world around has taken on a new chill that Marco knows is nothing to do with the failing autumn....he goes into the woods again. 

And answers the same question the witch asked before. What would you give me in return.

 Some consider it a miracle of God that Armin Arlert was breathing by the time the sun peered over the horizon, sitting up with a blanket around his shoulders by noon, and back at home with his parents with no memory or scar of the day previous by that evening. Marco was not seen for two more days, though, and when he did return home...well. 

Just the same, when his parents asked, Marco didn't tell. His mother never looked him in the eye after that though, and his younger brother was now asked to help out more around the farm when he father called for assistance and two good hands.

Jean is silent now as he watches Marco, who has stopped trying to eat and is looking glumly over the food. He speaks again after a long moment, but not to continue his story. Rather, he asks Jean quietly if they can go home, and Jean snaps out of his amazed stupor to agree and asks the waiter for their checks and a carryout box (because he knows, even upset, Marco hates the thought of wasting food.) 

So they pack up and head home, Marco still quiet and Jean trying not to try and goad him into talking about his past more. It was an interesting story...but it was also real things that apparently happened to his...roommate? Boyfriend? Jean's own feelings are kinda conflicted. But he keeps his mouth shut, and waits for Marco to come to him. 

And eventually, he does. 

It's about a week later, when they're both watching television on the couch, and it's late enough even Jean the notorious night owl is sleepily considering heading to bed when Marco starts to speak up. Jean wonders if Marco knows Jean's awake, or if he thinks he's just talking to himself. 

It was the dead of winter. Yule had passed, and with it the warmth of festivities and stored food, and now only the long wait those last few dreary months before spring arrived remained. People were hungry. Even Marco's family, as alright as they had been doing, were still going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel by spring. 

So begins the last time Marco ever saw his...family. 

The last time he ruffled Peter's hair as he left to check the snares they'd set in the woods, playfully bantered with his elder brother Simon about milking the cows later, and told Maggie to be a good girl for mother as she wasn't feeling well today. Maggie though, wanted to come. She was getting older, a strong eight years old as she liked to remind everyone who would listen, and Marco was one of the people who would indulge her when she asked to tag along, or be included in something fun - or at least, something less menial then household chores. 

And while normally Marco would love to have her along...well....he was loathe to admit it, made his missing arm throb every time he remembered what he'd done...but the traps he'd set were closer to the witch's house then the bravest man on the land would find comfortable. The hunting was better there...and nothing bad had happened so far... but he didn't want Maggie coming along. It was still dangerous, and Marco had seen pawprints that didn't belong to any dogs that size around. 

So he told her no. He told her to stay and look after mom and be a good girl.  So, so stupid of him...

Marco went deep into the forest with his knife and game bag. The traps so far, all had something in them, and it made him happy to see. Grouse, rabbit, and hare, squirrels and even a deer had gotten it's leg trapped in one of the twitch lines. Marco let that one go, and watched it run off into the woods away from the man without a second thought. It was too big to butcher out here with...with only one hand, and besides, a whole deer and his parents might start asking questions again, about where his good hunting fortune had been leading him-

Marco never did like hearing screaming in the woods. 

Especially when it was screaming he knew. 

For the third time in his life, Marco was too late. The sheep, his friend...

Maggie had followed him, and, like the sneaky child most were when they  didn't get their way, she'd made sure he didn't know she was there, and then, well, probably gotten lost in the woods when she'd lost sight of him. There was blood in the snow when he arrived, and a hooded figure standing at the top of a hill as two huge wolves, blacker then pitch on on moonless night ravage something at the bottom of the hill that makes Marco's insides numb and his phantom limb and missing eye scream. 

He jumps in without thinking, much like his first barter, much like Armin's rescue. Ivory teeth tear his skin, and scythe claws nick bone, but still, his screams are not ones of fear of his own pain. They are ones of fear of the pain of the little girl who has stopped screaming and lies mangled in the snow. 

He doesn't realize what he's done until the blow is delivered and one of the hellish wolf twins is blacking away with a whimper as it's shadow sister lies on the ground next to Maggie with a knife through it's eye, the blade sunk in until the hilt, dead. 

Marco hesitates again, and Jean hardly dares breathe. Though it's his good eye, Jean can tell Marco is not seeing the tv in front of him when he speaks again.  Marco's vision was red, his hand was red, the snow was turning into slush and staining his clothing red. There was the sounds of footsteps, and Marco cannot drag his eyes away from the too-quiet, too-still form of Maggie to look up at the hooded woman who now stands before him. His hand clutches at his sister's torn tunic, her little hand-made cloak and he can't seem to stop the ringing in his head, the pulsing of his own wounds not even a thought in his head. 

When he hears her voice, it is not the question, that damnable question he has answered twice now, but her words still shatter his mind, reverberating not off of the trees around him in the white and scarlet forest, but in his own head. 

You have taken something from me. 

I have taken something from you as payment. 

And now...you have taken yet again. 

What will you give me in return. 

Jean knows. 

Thus completed the third barter of Marco Bodt. 

[anavoliselenu]

Manwhore chapter 26

“Baby blue. The perfect event deserves the perfect dress, just like the perfect man deserves the perfect girl,” Gina argues with Wynn.

“I’m not perfect, but I want to look perfect tonight,” I tell them both.

“Your billionaire just struck gold with you tonight, you look like a million bucks—well invested and soon to yield.”

“Wynn!” I laugh.

“I still don’t get why you didn’t just bring him up to your room yesterday and let him stake a physical claim on you.”

“Because . . . we haven’t been together in a month.”

“Exactly why you shouldn’t have talked at all! What’s there to talk about? He wants you, you want him.”

I rummage through my earrings for a pair of small silver studs that bring out the gray in my eyes. “He . . . well, we’ve gone over it, I’ve told you two.”

“No, you haven’t. You get red and that’s it. You can’t talk about him without spacing out . . .”

I groan. My friends, Gina and Wynn, they want to know that I’m going to be all right.

“He read my article,” I say.

They’re looking impatient, their faces alive with anticipation. And I’m remembering. I feel his hands cup my face again. I feel his eyes on me again. His lips so close, and so far away. And suddenly . . . on the very edge of my lips. I look down at the palm of my hand, the invisible Dibs that unfortunately washed off after a week of showers.

“He asked me to go out with him tonight.”

Gina opened one of my wines and when she comes back with three foam cups, I tell myself—please don’t ever let Sin see we’re drinking this wine in foam cups. “Publicly?” she asks, handing a cup to each of us.

“Finally?” Wynn asks, taking a sip.

Setting mine aside, I nod as the butterflies fly fly fly in me. Still hidden in my closet is his shirt. I pulled it out of hiding last night—a shirt that brings back every memory—then I quickly stripped and slipped my arms into the sleeves, buttoning it up.

And that’s how I slept.

It felt like hot, sheet-clawing sex on my skin. I lay in bed, my hormones all crazed, telling myself that I’m not going to do anything sexy until he does it to me.

“And I said yes. And he told me to get a dress.”

He’d said it low but casual, as if it were the most natural thing for him to do for me, in his voice that never fails to get to me. Then I refrain from telling them the rest; that he marked my hand with a pen . . . and I went to my bed, and called my mother in the darkness, and told her . . . and unexpectedly, burst out crying from the happiness when I heard her voice.

“We’re doing this black tie thing and if it’s the last thing I do, I want to look incredible tonight,” I admit, looking at myself in the mirror above my vanity.

I haven’t looked this happy in a while—but I haven’t felt this happy in my life.

“This dress does the trick. The side slit is perfect, the strapless bare shoulders, the way it goes all the way down to your toes. You want to say: you know I’m naughty deep down but it’s only for you,” Wynn says.

“Oh please, like he’s not naughtier than anything we’ve ever known,” Gina groans.

I laugh. My cheeks flare red as I think about him and wonder if he’s as desperate to be with me as I am with him.

“But did he read your article? Something in it must’ve done something to him.”

Wynn brings out the copy of the magazine I have hidden under my bed, mainly because it has a picture of him, and taps on the last sentence. “This part: I’d leap blindly into the air if only there were even a 0.01 percent chance that he’d still be there, waiting to catch me.”

“Wynn. You two. Help me get ready!”

They turn on the music and with “Sugar” by Maroon 5 playing, I keep prettying up for him, repeatedly brushing my hair until it falls down my back, as lustrous as glass.

For weeks, I’ve been alone, staring at my laptop, hearing its low hum. It’s quiet for the night, the reporter tucked away. Now, the one humming is me. I’m wearing a dress fit for a princess. Now my friends are fussing around me, pulling out matching bags and shoes.

Gina is being especially helpful. Gina, who’s been concerned about me getting my heart broken. “Now you’re all eager for me to hook up with the same guy you wanted me to stay away from? You’re Team Justin now?” I tease her.

She pauses. “I’m Team what makes you happy. And . . . well, from what Tahoe told me, yes.”

I roll my eyes. “You believe that man?”

“He loves Justin as much as I love you!” she says. “He didn’t enjoy your breakup any more than I enjoyed watching you mope. He said . . .”

“What?” I ask, my full attention on her.

“He thinks Justin is really into you because usually people only fuck up with him once,” she specifies.

Wynn scowls. “What else did he say? If you’re going to be talking to him then you must tell us when you talk about Rache.”

“I only talked to him yesterday, and he said, and I quote, ‘Justin’s really into your best friend. Never seen him like this—ever.’ ”

I never thought my sexy parts could blush but they’ve been blushing every time I think of him.

“What does Momma Selena say? Does she know?” asks Wynn.

“Mother?” I laugh. Her name is Kelly, not Selena, but the girls call her Mom or Momma Selena.

“She wants to meet him. She’s excited that he came over. But I don’t want to pressure him right now, my momma will have to wait until we see where this is going.”

“Okay, let’s get real here though. Are you planning to sleep with him?”

“YES! Dude, YES, I PLAN TO SLEEP WITH HIM. I’M DYING TO!” I say, laughing with pure giddy anticipation.

“The car’s downstairs!” calls Wynn from the window, then she goes to the kitchen to ring him up, and peers into my room. “He’s coming up.”

“Okay.” Inhaling sharply at the news, I hurry to finish strapping up my shoes and get a sheer blue shawl from a closet.

“Hey, Rache,” Gina says, grabbing my hand. She looks at me and squeezes. “I’m happy for you, it’s been breaking my heart. Because I do have one, you know? Paul didn’t take it all, only the men’s part. But the girl’s part is yours and Wynn’s.” She looks a little emotional, her eyes glistening a little. “You know I don’t believe in love. But I believe in second chances, and this is yours, Rache. And you know, I kind of admire his persistence. He really seems set on getting you.”

I squeeze her hand, breathless at the thought. “You have no idea how he is when he’s after what he wants. Patient but so, so ruthless.”

She smiles at me, and I smile back. Dropping my hand, she heads to peer out the door. “Don’t open it yet, Wynn, she has to look perfect,” Gina orders, but seconds later, Wynn is the one we hear speaking.

“Justin, come in! She’s just about ready!”

I hear his low voice as he greets her and I’m not immune to the sound.

I’m in my bedroom, but through the parted door, I see a glimpse of a long arm in a black jacket, silver cuff link and white cuff—his hand at his side. Tanned and square, his long fingers idle. I feel a visceral reaction seeing that hand, those strong, knowing fingers, my body flushing in remembrance of how it feels when he touches me.

I take one last look at myself in a strapless blue dress that falls to my feet, with a long, sexy slit on the left side, the color bringing out the bluish shades in my gray eyes. My hair is loose and, because my shoulders are bare and I could get cold, I draw the matching shawl a little higher.

The nerves tangle up inside me as I step out and take in the full image of Justin. His back is to me, but I take a tiny pleasure in seeing the back of his head, his confident stance, the incredible amount of energy he seems to suck from his surroundings.

“Oh, there she is!” Wynn happily tells him, signaling past his shoulder.

He turns, one hand in his pocket, the other at his side, and I can’t help but notice how he makes a fist when he sees me. “Selena,” he says.

A massacre of emotions sweeps over me.

I can’t fight the nature of my body, and though I want to look cool, I’m blushing bright red as I smile shyly. “Hey, Sin.”

I walk over, tentatively set my hand on his chest and, seeing the admiring way he’s looking at me, press up on my toes to kiss his jaw.

He touches my bare back and holds me in place, prolonging the time that my lips are on his skin.

“You ready?” he asks quietly into my earlobe, so only I can hear.

I nod and we say goodbye to the girls. He slips his large, square hand into my smaller one, and as he leads me out of the apartment, I turn and see Gina mouthing, “Ohmigod!” and Wynn, a big wide “AAAAAAA!”

When we reach the sidewalk, Otis opens the door of the Rolls as Justin gives him instructions. I’ve barely slid into the center of the seat when the door on the other side opens, and Sin slides onto the bench opposite mine.

I don’t know if he likes my little strapless blue dress, the pink-painted toes displayed by my pumps, or the long slit on the side of said long dress. All I know is that my skin has broken out in goose bumps because of his nearness. And as he settles down across from me and his eyes take a slow, delicious trek up my body, there’s a little bonfire in my stomach.

I check him out too, because his tuxedo loves him so thoroughly it’s an instant aphrodisiac to watch them together. God, I’m this living, wanting, throbbing ache now.

“Hey,” he says, his eyes just a little bit liquid. “You look beautiful.” His eyebrows pull low then, shaping a perfect frown. “Though I was supposed to buy you a dress.”

“No,” I deny, smiling and shaking my head firmly.

“Yes,” he grins. “Stop saying no to me.”

Jesus. He looks at me with his green, green sparkling eyes, and I’m gone, gone, totally gone.

“I said yes to this black tie,” I counter.

I’m not supposed to feel shy right now. If there is a man who knows me, it’s this man. But he’s so masculine and looking at me as if I’m so female, he has the ability to make me feel so young and so terribly fragile.

“I bribed you with wine, I’ve come to know your vices,” he gruffs out teasingly. Then, he reaches out to take my hand and draws me across the car, to his bench. He chucks my chin when I’m settled down. “Your every vice,” he adds, deathly sober now.

“Do you?” I playfully say. “You don’t know them all. If you did, you’d be kissing me.”

He steals a heavy-lidded look at my mouth and I get a delicious little squeeze in my lower body when I realize he is going to kiss me. “But if you kiss me, you’re going to mess up my lipstick,” I say, but he’s already curling his strong arm around my waist and slowly, surely, dragging me flush to his side.

“Your lipstick will look great on me.”

“Sin!” I throw my head back and laugh.

He trails his thumb along the curve of my neck. “That laugh of yours,” he tells me quietly.

He says it as if it’s his greatest discovery.

A hairsbreadth from my ear, he whispers, “I can think of over five feet of you that I can kiss without messing your lipstick.”

Suddenly trembling in anticipation when I recognize the look in his eyes, I let him brush the shawl off my shoulders, laughing faintly and chiding “Justin” as he eases my hair aside to reveal the curve of my neck and shoulder.

He rubs his thumb along my collarbone and looks into my eyes as he continues to gently fondle my skin. He kisses the roundest part of my shoulder, his lips caressing up and down, side to side, before he sets a second kiss upward, heading toward my neck.

“Selena,” he whispers, so thick and raw, trailing his fingers to the R necklace resting at the base of my throat.

I’m acutely aware of his fingers shifting the small, gold letter aside. Then his warm fingertips are lifting the metal so he can press his lips into the delicate nook where my pulse is fluttering wildly. I’m mad with lust under his moist breath on my skin, the space between his thigh and mine, the deliriously slow path of ghost kisses he drops on his way up my neck, toward my jaw.

“I lose,” he says when he reaches my mouth.

I’m confused. I’m bewildered by his meaning. He’s definitely not falling asleep—his stare is as alert as ever. But he said I lose and I can see that he’s really determined to lose somehow. Determined to lose against whatever it is he’s fighting. He looks completely unapologetic too.

“I lose,” he repeats.

My eyes widen when he reaches out and brings me over to his lap and every bit of Justin is surrounding me, enveloping me, maddening me. The dark gleam in his eyes is completely serious, completely unlike the times he teases me. Jaw set, he curls a hand around my nape and pulls me to the wall of his chest, so close that all that’s between us is my dress and his shirt.

His eyes are fastened to my mouth now and OMG, I’m so breathless when he brushes his lips across mine.

“Do you think it’s this intense between us because of what happened?” I whisper.

His lips feather across mine again. “I don’t know . . . but I’m pursuing it. I’ll take this fire any day over the ice I live in.”

His chest is rising slowly, and I’m starting to pant. I’m trembling all over. My heart is beating madly and I’m holding my breath, waiting for what he’ll do next. His warm hands, his strong chest, his soft mouth suddenly pressing to the corner of mine. I catch a sob as he sets the ghost kiss right there, right where I need it, where I love it, where it branded me from the first time.

The lipstick doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters.

I open my lips, but he drags his mouth up the side of my face and exhales slowly, fisting a hand in my hair as he holds me to his chest. I don’t move a muscle. If he’s giving me time to protest, I can’t. I just can’t. I missed him so much, a ball of emotion is forming in my stomach and my throat and my heart.

His delicious scent is killing me. So familiar I’m high.

His hair tickles the side of my face as he goes to the other corner, and I can smell his soap, and when he sets his lips fully on mine, I quiver. He slips his tongue lightly into my mouth, as if testing my resistance.

I open easily and when his tongue strokes over the side of mine, I rub back languorously, a low, dull throb building between my legs.

He eases back and then he’s staring down at me with smoldering heat that’s almost frightening. He’s looking at me like I’m something else, something extraordinary, something perfect, like he can’t believe I’m trembling in his arms.

His hands frame my face, his palms swallowing it as his lips start to crush over mine harder. Groaning, he starts kissing me a little bit faster, and I can’t get enough, can’t work my mouth fast enough to get all of him that I want. I push my fingers into his hair—his hair! And let him use the small of my back to press my breasts against his chest as he sucks on my tongue, slow and greedy. Justin is kissing me like he wants me more than the world he likes to conquer and more than the moon he’s never been able to get.

We kiss a little more.

I pour all my love into the kiss. My walls are crumbled at my feet when the kiss stops, but I have no energy to pull them up right now. My lids are heavy, but so are his. I’m struggling to breathe, but his chest is pushing against his shirt as he breathes deeper too.

“I missed you,” I whisper.

He murmurs into the top of my head, “I missed you too.”

We fall silent then, simply in each other’s arms, until we reach our destination.

I’ve never been both so relaxed and at the same time buzzing all over.

When the car halts, Justin wipes my lipstick off his face, strokes his thumbs over my lips while I fix my hair, then he steps out first to a few audible gasps outside. He stretches his hand into the car for me, I slip my hand into his and then let him pull me out, immediately stunned by the dozens of heads in line at the entrance of the party already fixed in our direction. They spot Justin and immediately their curiosities are piqued as to who he’s with, so they glance at me and can’t seem to hide their surprised faces.

I’m shaking inside but his hand, oh, it feels so steady as we head over to the bouncer to be admitted inside.

He squeezes my fingers to catch my attention. “The look in your eyes. What are you afraid of ?” he asks as the bouncer swiftly recognizes him and tugs open the door for us.

“The world.”

He grins down at me, so tall and powerful. “Relax,” he says. “The world’s in my pocket.”

And I feel relief flood me as I let myself believe it.

The ballroom is glistening when we arrive. It seems like all of the rich in the city are present. I force myself to hold my head high.

Modern glass chandeliers hang like tangled wires from the ceiling, while a wall of shimmering waterfalls greets us to the right. There’s a live orchestra, chocolate fountains, and perfect round tables covered in white linens and silverware, complete with Tiffany chairs to match. We venture deep into the crowd, walking amidst an impressive amount of glittering dresses, men in black ties, women in exotic perfumes. I’m aware of how those women watch Justin, and the men watch me. God, it’s incredible, the eyes he draws. Even if people don’t know who he is, Justin’s presence is so magnetic you instantly know he’s someone.

“Don’t let them own you, Selena.”

“I won’t,” I say.

“You’re with me.”

I look into his eyes. “I know.”

“Then let’s make a round and I’ll take you away . . . if you’re good,” he warns. And there, suddenly, is the spark of mischief in his eyes that I’ve missed so much.

With a brief look at my mouth that reminds me of the kisses he just gave me, he leads me to our table and introduces me to our table companions. I keep expecting to be sneered at, shunned. But soon I realize, no. These people respect Justin too much for that.

And they steal him away every second they can too.

I engage in a brief conversation with a couple he introduced me to, shaking my head when three different women come to flirt with Justin.

When we finally come back together, I can’t help but tease him. “Can’t you be alone for a minute? Without anyone catering to you?”

He smiles at me and turns me to a spectacular-looking older woman. “Selena Livingston, this is Norma Dean. She’s our host.”

“Oh, I’m familiar with your work! I read your piece on this thing right here.” She smacks Justin’s chest. “And I was hooked by your voice. Such a lovely, smart, passionate girl. What took you so long to snatch her up?” she chides.

“Traffic.”

When I look up, Justin’s lips are curled slightly and his eyes are twinkling and a ribbon of heat unfurls in my stomach.

And then I realize after her comment that maybe, incredibly, some of these people also respect me.

He soon leads me back to our table and introduces me to a few CEOs and their wives, philanthropists and entrepreneurs. They’re all older than us and very friendly.

I feel like I belong, even though I’ve never belonged here before, and I realize as we sit here discussing everything from ponies that they bought for their daughters, to business merger news, to the best hairstylists in town, that Justin wouldn’t have brought me somewhere if he thought I’d be shunned or laughed at. He respects these people too, and expects them to respect me. Every time one of them says his name and leans forward a bit in their seat to talk to him, they do so with such admiration that I realize he knows that my just being in this space of his will protect me. And I do feel safe.

A man has taken up a conversation with Justin on one side, while a woman is completely telling me the story of her marriage to the man sitting beside her. She’s at the part about how the ex-wife and her actually became good friends, when Justin whispers, “Let’s get away for a bit, Selena.” He looks at me as though it’s not even a question. “If I can borrow her for a bit, Julie,” he apologizes.

I’m aware of us drawing a few glances when we stand, his friends raising their eyebrows as he takes me by the arm and helps me to my feet.

He puts his hand on the small of my back and I feel it rush through me until I feel it in the tips of my breasts, between my toes, as we head out of the room to a set of elevators.

I notice that a couple of groups of young ladies in the room pause what they’re doing to watch us head to the elevators. They clearly don’t like him leaving with me.

“Your girlfriends weren’t too happy about you stealing away with me.”

His lips curve in amusement. “They’re not my girlfriends.”

“So what do you call all those girls who strip for you and cater to your whims for a day or two . . . or four?”

He stares at me, laughing, his smile like a bolt of light. “They’re just girls.”

We reach the top of the building, and he leads me out onto the roof terrace. “Come look at this.”

I turn with him and head to the very edge of the building’s roof, by the railing, with a breathtaking view of the lake. A sliver of moonlight dances in the middle of the water tonight. As he looks at it, I watch him in my peripheral. I have a thousand pictures of him but none like this. Pensive. Raw. The face I see right now isn’t for any camera, it’s for nobody to see.

“Won’t your friends miss you downstairs?” I ask, my voice whispery.

“They know I’m a busy man. They also know I enjoy my privacy when I feel like being private.” He studies me with the moonlight gleaming in his eyes. “I have a date with that blue dress of yours.”

“No you don’t.” But my stomach dips in excited contradiction. “I have no intention of letting it get acquainted with your tuxedo.”

“Yes, you do.”

He takes my hand, his warm fingers closing around mine. “I feel like being private right now.”

There’s a swooping pull in my insides as he reels me closer.

He’s the first to move, his hand lifting only a fraction to rest on my face as he curls me in his arm so we both face the lake.

I hadn’t ever grown accustomed to being held like this, the few months we were together. I stand here and just absorb the feeling of being close to someone who’s so much bigger and harder than I am.

We stay like that. The very air over the water seems electrified. He runs his hand through my hair and the sensation is so sweet and so intoxicating, I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

He obviously knows he affects me. But he looks affected too, his body stone-like and buzzing with tension. “I wanted to show you this. You see that lake?”

The wind brings his scent toward me and I swallow and almost taste it.

“I don’t ever want to leave Chicago simply because I love being near that lake. My mother used to take me out there—the Pearl was her yacht,” he says. “She’d never let me get in the water. After I was sick, she became paranoid. So I had to test my limits in private.”

“She took you out there just to look at what you couldn’t touch?” He shrugs. “And now you test your limits all the time.”

“I do. Sometimes to feel immortal, and sometimes to remind myself that I’m not.”

His eyes are mesmerizing right now.

“She was a good mother?”

“She was a good mother; I was a bad kid.” He smirks.

“No,” I say, instantly.

He smiles.

God, my stomach moves every time he smiles at me.

“I’m telling you, Selena.”

“No. I don’t believe you were a bad boy.”

He laughs. “I’m still a bad boy, only I’m a man, with the ambitions of a man. The desires of a man.”

As he investigates my reaction with a quiet but penetrating look at my face, I remember his father. The things I’ve seen and read online. In every video of them together I’ve seen, Justin is chill and controlled, admirably diplomatic even when the father is aggressive and full of venom. If Justin had been a “good” boy, though, he’d never have become who he is. His father would have kept his “good” boy under control, but instead, he became Justin Justin, and now the shadow Justin casts is so much grander than his father’s ever was.

“You know,” I hear myself offer, my voice showing my admiration for him, “my mother worked too much. Day and night. Maybe that’s why my imagination flourished, it was sometimes the only company I had. We didn’t really get to spend a lot of time together. Which makes me always want to give back, but it never seems like I can make it up to her.”

“I know what you mean. I can never say goodbye to mine.”

I’ve never been more aware of him as a human being.

Justin stands with his legs spread apart, staring out at the city, his profile mysterious and unreadable. I can tell by the sound of his deep breath he’s trying to remain unaffected. By the conversation. Maybe by me. But when I brush my body against his and he looks at me, his eyes turn to fire.

“Come home tonight, with me.”

One second I’m opening my mouth, trying to come up with an explanation why maybe we should take it slow, the next he brushes his mouth to mine.

“What are you doing?” I laugh nervously. “I’m going to end up with no lipstick at all.”

My skin breaks out in goose bumps when his reply is merely a curve of his lips. “Tell me you want to talk about Interface,” he whispers in my ear. That used to be our code for kissing . . . making out. “Tell me you left something at my place.” He rubs his nose against my ear. “Tell me you want me tonight.”

“I . . . I want to talk about Interface,” I say, not able to hold back a small laugh.

He strokes a finger up my arm, watching me. “My goal is complete domination of the market . . .” he murmurs as he lowers his dark head, his lips soft and warm as they press on my throat. “Elimination of all competition . . .”

He ducks his head and I feel his mouth brushing, almost like air, over the tip of one breast. I can’t breathe.

He lifts his head and frames my face in his hands, warm, strong hands, and then he smoothes a hand back, pulling me closer, his long fingers encompassing so much of me I feel it like a collar around the back of my neck. A collar that’s remarkably welcome, that makes me feel safe and controlled while the rest of my body’s in chaos.

His voice is low and gruff and his breath is too close to my face, my ear. “I’m taking over,” he continues in a husky voice. “Until there’s absolutely nothing left. Nothing before it. Nothing after it. Only what’s mine, what I claimed and what I make of it.” He kisses me then, and we kiss for a long time.

“Maybe I’ll invest in this Interface,” I whisper.

“Come down with me. One walk across the room to meet a few of my business partners. And then we leave.”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

“I’m not asking on this.”

When we head back downstairs, he places a hand on my waist. He caresses it as we go down—and oh, I definitely feel like his date.

“You’re a devil.” I laugh as I check my reflection in the shiny elevator wall.

“And you want me.”

I mock-gasp. “You’re a deluded devil.”

“I’m one who won’t stop until I get what I want.”

When we step off the elevator, he guides me into the ballroom with his hand on my nape. The touch is light enough to remind me I’m free to choose, but with just the right amount of pressure that says—I’m here. I desire you. Turn yourself over to me for a night and I’ll make every inch of you remember you’re my woman.

He lowers his hand to the small of my back, even when he’s stopped at a table to chat with a few businessmen. I let him introduce me and talk mostly to the men.

Only a few of the younger women at the table make me a little uncomfortable.

They’re draped in the most beautiful jewels, and looking at my tiny, simple R. Their dresses glitter and sparkle as they take in my plain silk one. Their hairdos are styled and swept and elegant as they stare at my straight locks. And judging by those looks, they just can’t seem to believe that the one standing next to him is me.

And still Justin’s hand remains on the small of my back.

I’m surprised that, for the first time since I’ve known Justin, I don’t care about these women, if they read my article or not, if they’re jealous, if they think I’m pretty enough for Justin Justin.

I’m human and flawed and hopeful and afraid and strong and weak and independent—and in love with him in a way I’m sure they are not.

I’m proud to be who I am.

I’m proud of where I stand.

REBOOTING US

Once we’re in the car and the partition between us and Otis is fully up, Justin presses me up against his side and his lips come down on mine. He parts my lips and his taste fills me, going like a shot of crack to my heart. A soft noise leaves me as I kiss him back with all I’ve got.

My fingers flutter over his shoulders and then I curl my hands around the back of his neck as we slow down and start kissing more leisurely, savoringly, getting reacquainted again.

“Are you okay with this?” he asks as he sets my mouth free. His eyes are so dark, I can hardly see the green in his pupils.

Nodding and breathless, I slide my fingers into his hair and pull his delicious mouth back to me. He fits his lips to mine, to the way he knows just how to.

He plays with my tongue a little, sucks gently on my lower lip.

The fingers of one hand trail under the fall of my hair and then he slides them upward to cradle the back of my head in his palm, and with that motion alone, he’s got me pinned in place. I’m helplessly subjected to his hungry mouth, and the way he’s kissing and sucking on me is so downright hot I’ve never been so turned on.

I end up lying down on the bench seat with his body above mine, my hands anxiously gripping fistfuls of his collar.

His tongue sweeps and sweeps into my mouth and when he retreats to give me a smoldering look, I notice the way his green, green eyes have darkened like a night forest.

“I miss you,” he rasps, looking at me so fiercely it’s as though he’s commanding me to understand what this means.

“I miss you too,” I croak feelingly.

“I miss the taste of you, the feel of you, the sounds you make.” Clenching his jaw as if he’s remembering what it was like to miss me, he strokes his curled index finger down the line of my jaw, watching what he does. I watch the emotions play across his features as he opens his hand and caresses my face and neck. Determination. Hunger. Control.

I’m panting, aching, wanting, waiting. Holding me by the back of the neck, he pulls me up to a sitting position and in for another wet kiss. Leisurely, his mouth slants from one side to the other as he tastes me from all angles. I feel delicious, juicy, luscious. Wanting to taste him just as thoroughly too, I draw his tongue into my mouth and suck, surprised by how the sucking motion causes every centimeter of my body to squeeze and Justin to reflexively tighten his hold on me.

He groans and draws me onto his lap and shifts me so that I straddle him, then he lowers the top of my dress with a little tug at the elastic of my strapless.

“Justin, what are you doing?” I gasp, covering my chest with my arms as my breasts pop free.

“I’m looking at you.” Completely shameless and in control, he takes both my arms and lowers them to my sides.

I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them, embarrassed to realize he’s probably noticed I used nipple stickers to keep from having to use a bra tonight. I didn’t want my nipples to be poking out, and now my perky breasts are staring up at him with two small, round tan stickers on them.

He runs his thumbs over each. My sex squeezes when I notice his gaze is loving, appraising, possessive. And dark. So very, very dark.

“I meant to take them off before you saw,” I whisper.

He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I’ll do it.” Then he leans close and kisses one tip of my breast over the sticker. Then the other, his lips warm and gentle. He then raises his head as he seizes each sticker between his thumbs and fingers and looks into my eyes as he gently pulls off one, then the other.

A frisson of need runs through me.

The act is strangely intimate. Looking into each other’s eyes as he does this to me.

He lifts his thumb to his mouth and my sex tightens when he licks it. He does the same with his other thumb. Then he uses both to rub my nipples clean, and I almost moan out loud.

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