Sine Qua Non

Chapter Four

When he asked how Jay day was, she said, “Fine,”

with a subdued caginess that reminded him of those first few days following her return, when every one of her responses had felt forced. It seemed engineered to provoke him and it very nearly did, but his triumph over Michael made him feel generous.

Today had been a pyrrhic victory. He was not going to lose it all now by fighting in the car.

As soon as they were over the threshold and the front door was closed, he walked her down the hall, tossing his keys into one of the decorative bowls on the credenza before taking her face in his hands. “Tell me what’s wrong. I know something is.”

She gave him a weary look. “You can’t fix everything.”

I can, actually , he thought, but he knew she wouldn’t want to hear that.

Jay tensed when he kissed her and then her shoulders dropped into complacency when he fished out the condom he now always kept in his wallet. The kissing became purposeful as he began undoing her blouse, fumbling the small buttons until she took his hands away and did it herself with an efficiency he found both seductive and beguiling.

“Nick—”

But he didn’t let her finish. He hitched her up over his knee and yanked aside everything in his way, spearing her against the side of the rightmost staircase and fucking her rhythmically against the wall. There would be marks. He was being careless, kissing her too hard.

(That’s how I want it)

“Oh,”

she breathed out, head back, eyes closed. “Oh god.”

“That’s it.”

He slid a hand behind her head, to cushion it from the wall. “Fuck me. Give me everything.”

You can’t imagine . . . all the different ways I’ve fucked you in my head.

Jay cried out softly, reaching between them to massage her clit as he covered her mouth again with his own. The urgency of it reminded him of when they were younger, and they’d had to be quick to avoid being caught. Jeans could be pulled down, and sweaters pulled up, both of them so close that he wouldn’t have to hold back his own pleasure when she submitted to him so beautifully the way she always did, as if they were fighting a war that she knew she’d already lost.

If you only knew the things I’d do for you.

The papers from Michael’s lawyer came the next morning. Express delivery, which amused him. The little fuck must have been really running scared.

That was one problem fixed but the troubled look hadn’t left her face, and he’d seen the wary looks she cast about the workplace and suspected he knew the cause for it. But if he’d told her what he’d done, she would be angry. If he pressed her, she’d be angrier still.

So he kept his silence, but he watched and wondered. And he planned.

Meanwhile, the days continued to drop away like dead flies until finally it was the night before she’d leave for the city. He had ordered dinner but the conversation was stilted, broken up harshly by the clink of silverware on china. Every time their words petered out, her eyes would drift towards something in the distance that he couldn’t see, and she’d toy with the necklace around her throat, worrying the ring that should have made her his.

(She said there was nothing left for her here)

A cold chill gripped him. He pushed back his mostly-uneaten plate and the scrape of the plate on the wood seemed to jolt her from wherever she was as she looked at him the way he imagined someone might look at a wild beast in the woods.

It made his voice harder than he wanted when he said, “I want you in my room tonight.”

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Wow, okay. Should I bother getting dressed? Or would clothes be too inconvenient for you when you push me up against the wall?”

“I just want to see you before you leave. It’s hardly the rape of the fucking Sabines.”

The look on her face became pained and a hot lump wedged itself into his throat. Fuck. “It’s up to you,” he said, angry with himself now. “Come or don’t.”

She stared at him. Several expressions flashed over her face in sequence, too quick to read. Then she nodded, and the silence between them swelled until she’d gotten up from the table and disappeared. Packing, he assumed, as he went to bed with his laptop. Telling himself he was going to work but really, he was straining for the sounds of her footsteps.

When he heard the stealthy creak outside his door, he closed his computer and set it down on the floor beside the nightstand, tugging off his T-shirt in anticipation. He’d been waiting for her but his breath still caught at the first swish of her skirt before the rest of her followed.

“I want to kiss for a little while.”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Can we do that?”

“Yes,”

he said hoarsely.

He’d kiss the air from both their lungs if it meant that she’d belong to him and him alone.

The sharp edges of the little jeweled bird pricked at his fingers as he turned the small ring over to study it in the waxing light while Jay slept. He could just make out the engraving inside and wondered if she’d seen it yet. With a sigh, he let the ring drop back onto her breasts.

She had belonged to him long before the rest of their town had staked its claim on her. Before her smiles for him had slowly last their warmth, he had truly believed that she could do no wrong.

His father? Yes, his father had been more than capable of hurting him, but the fact that Jay could had been a knife that slipped right through his defenses.

She had gutted him. Unable to eat or sleep, he had mulled over her rejection for days as it festered in his heart. Then he remembered the exchange he’d had with his father on the way back from Vegas—he had called her willful, ungrateful —and he had thought that yes, maybe Jay needed to be humbled a little, after all. He’d thought that if she lost that angelic shine, she would come crawling to him willingly when he dragged her down into the gutters.

But then he’d seen the way she looked at him afterwards.

There was no love in that look.

He thought he might die when she looked at him like that. For a while, after she’d gone, it felt like part of him had. And when he’d found her again, and seen the terror in her eyes in that dinky little soap shop, it was like she’d killed him all over again.

I’ve ruined this , he remembered thinking . I’ve ruined her.

Maybe it was a mistake to let her leave. There was the possibility that she might not come back. Putting on his favorite dress and fucking him goodbye was exactly the sort of thing that a woman like her might her might do before she left for good.

Fuck.

He held her tighter, squeezing her body to his until she made a small squeak of protest from her reddened lips. “Don’t run away.”

His words buzzed in the silence, stinging like angry wasps. “Please.”

I’ll let you do anything to me but leave.

He kissed her neck, filling his arms with her warmth and softness. Jay was not a tiny woman and he loved how she felt when she was flush against his larger frame and all those soft, sweet curves molded to the hard planes of his body, hopelessly intertwined with hundreds of memories where he had felt cared for and loved.

“I wish it had always been this way between us. From the very beginning. This is how it should have been.”

He gave one of her breasts a squeeze. “You should have been mine.”

You will be soon.

“Nick?”

she murmured sleepily.

“Yes. I’m right here.”

“I thought you said something.”

She snuggled against him in a way he felt everywhere as her fingers smoothed absently over the hair furring his forearms. His cock stiffened in his pants at the sound of her throaty sigh. “Mm. Warm.”

He let his hand glide down her front, over her jutting hip until lace yielded to skin. He let his hand settle in the crease of her thigh exposed by the slit in her dress and had to fight back a shudder at her heat. “You up for some fun?”

“No,”

Jay whined sleepily. “I don’t want to run.”

He laughed involuntarily, which made his balls throb. Goddamn it . “I didn’t say run. Daddy wants to roll your lazy little ass over and fuck it.”

“Sore,” Jay said.

“I hope that’s a request,”

he whispered in her ear. “As in, ‘Leave me.’”

“Sleep.”

“Are you even awake, Jay?”

There was a long pause. Then she let out a quiet snore.

Nicholas leaned back, contemplating the rather dire state of his semi before sliding out of bed and getting dressed to the light of his bedside table lamp. Jay slept on, her body dipping into the space he’d left. Seeing her look so peaceful twisted his gut.

There was a Vietnamese place that opened early and did vegan spring rolls and coconut cream ca phe nau. He placed an order, then fed Jay’s cat, shooing it out of the way with his foot as he bent to grab its kibble bag. The annoying thing followed him around the room, tail up, rubbing against his bare ankle as he filled the bowl that still looked full enough, to him.

He had already arranged for her U-Haul and the plane ticket, ignoring her protests when he upgraded her to first class. She still thought this was about past debts, but he had never given a fuck about money beyond using it as a tool to get what he wanted.

This time, he thought, things would be different.

He checked on her again: she was hugging the pillow, the embroidered flowers of her nightgown glistening like ice where the fibers caught the light, sharply contrasting with the deep brown of her skin. He ached to photograph it, to trap the moment like a butterfly in amber, part of him fearing that this was the last time he’d see her waking up in his bed.

With a ragged sigh, he closed the door.

She began stirring right around the time that he answered the door for the food delivery. As he set out the various cartons on the counter, he heard the creak of the beams, then the pad of her footsteps coming down one of the staircases.

“What’s all this?”

Jay blinked as she walked in on him plating, folding her arms over her robe.

“I wanted to see you off properly.”

“Wow.”

A little bit of color tinted her cheekbones as she slid onto one of the barstools. “That’s so sweet, Nick. You really didn’t have to go through all this effort.”

Sweet was for candy and children. He glanced at her sideways. “I wanted to.”

“Well, thank you.”

She rolled up her sleeve to reach for a roll, dragging his eyes to the deep V where the fabric gaped along the neckline. “This looks amazing. And you remembered—no fish sauce.” She took a slow bite and his dick twitched. “Oh my god, it tastes amazing, too.”

“I enjoy taking care of you.”

He brushed her shoulder as he reached over to steal a wayward piece of carrot from her plate. “We got pretty good at taking care of each other before.”

She swallowed hard. “Yes. But that was a long time ago. We’re not children anymore.”

“No. Now I can do things for you that I couldn’t then. And you, my sweet, beautiful bird, don’t have to carry the weight of everyone’s expectations.”

“Just yours.”

He leaned forward on the counter, his arms straining against the tight sleeves of the old t-shirt as he reached over to flick her necklace. “Just mine.”

She nudged her plate away and sipped some of the Vietnamese coffee, her eyes drifting towards the fridge. “Aren’t you eating anything? I can share if there’s not enough. There’s plenty.”

“I’ll have something after I swim later. I’m not hungry right now.”

“You’re just making me a little nervous, the way you’re staring at me.”

“Good.”

He gave the belt of her robe a yank. “You should be.”

Jay yelped, covering herself with a modesty he found very amusing as the terrycloth slipped down her bare shoulders. “Give it to me,”

she said, when he pulled the cord taut between his hands and snapped it with playful menace.

“ Give it to you?”

“You—”

She made another one of those little yips when he grabbed at her, trying to back away and push off from the counter bar at the same time. The stool wobbled dangerously and hit the tiled floor with a clatter, while Jay fell right on her luscious little ass. “ Shit —”

He walked over and extended his hand, grinning.

“You ass .”

She gripped his palm a little too tightly as he pulled her up. “I don’t know why you’re such a—” He casually reached for her other hand and jerked both up behind her back, cutting her off mid-phrase as he looped the cord around both wrists. “Nick, what the fuck?”

He cinched the terrycloth cord around her bound wrists with a flourish. “You can’t see it, but that’s called a bowline,”

he said innocently. “I used to spend my summers sailing.”

“Fascinating. Untie it.”

“If only you’d gotten up earlier. Maybe I’d be less distracted.”

Without the cord, her robe had fallen open. When he looped his arm around her, he could feel her heart pounding rapidly and the soft weight of her breasts. He rubbed his forearm back and forth and felt her nipples harden through the thin lace. “Tell me more about what you’re going to do in San Francisco.”

Jay threw an unamused look over her shoulder. “Murder you.”

“And after I booked you into first class.”

“It’s a one-hour flight.”

“You can do a lot in an hour.”

Nicholas let his other hand drift to the slit in her nightgown. Her bound hands convulsed as he moved up to her inner thigh. She hadn’t put on underwear. “Are you going to see your old roommates?”

“No.”

Her breathing became unsteady. “We don’t talk anymore.”

“Does that include your ex?”

“Yes— fuck —including him. Oh my god.”

She jerked again as he slid two fingers inside her. “Are you jealous?”

“Of some waiter who couldn’t even get you off?”

“His name was Dante, not ‘some waiter.’ And he didn’t—”

She broke off into a sharp cry that made his dick rock hard. Still thumbing her clit, he sucked hard on her throat. “What didn’t he do, Jay? Make you come so hard you couldn’t talk?”

He crooked his fingers until she was sinking back against him. “Did he let you call him Daddy?”

Jay flinched. “I can’t believe you’re giving me such a hard time about this when you have way more experience in that department than I do.”

He breathed out against her throat, displeased. “Not with anyone who mattered.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Why? It was just sex. The drinks I had in the hotel lobby made me feel more than any of them did. It wasn’t anything like what I have with you.”

“Oh, god, Nicholas.”

Her voice broke on the second syllable of his name and he pressed harder with his fingers, until the third syllable died into a hiss. Panting, she whispered, “I can’t listen to this.”

“You brought up my past flings.”

Bored with the game now, he untied her wrists, snapping the cord loosely against her arm before handing it back. “Do you want a head count? Or do you want to know that you’re the only one who ever got to call me Daddy?”

Jay folded her arms. “Was that really all you expected from women? Sex and a drink or two before you just tossed them out of your house like tissue paper?”

His house. “I never brought any of them home. I was too fucking obsessed with you .”

Defiance flared in her face and something in him surged in response. Before the conversation could spiral out of control further, he covered her mouth with his. She tasted like cilantro and sweet herbs, and something that was just . . . her.

“Just you.”

A harsh breath sailed past his lips. “I don’t want anyone else. I never did.”

“No matter who else gets hurt.”

“You’re the only woman I ever cared about enough to hurt me. That’s what love is, isn’t it? Handing someone your emotional knife and trusting them not to draw blood with it? But you do, Jay. You take that fucking knife and you plunge it into me again and again—”

He drew her hand to his chest, spreading her fist out flat against his heart.

“You hurt me,”

he finished, just barely above a whisper.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Nicholas,”

she said desperately.

“No?”

He leaned in and felt her fingers claw through his shirt, as if she would gouge at him even as he spoke against her trembling mouth. “Then why are you so good at it?”

Why did you leave on the night I promised you everything?

She stared, as if reluctantly fascinated, as he dragged her fingers down his abdomen, all the way down to the waistband of his sweatpants. When he wrapped their fingers around him, she looked away—as if she weren’t the same woman who had said, I was going to suck your cock.

“God,”

he said hoarsely, remembering. “You’re so fucking good at it.”

“Sometimes you’re still such a selfish boy.”

“I think it scares you, how much you want this.”

He gave her hand a squeeze for emphasis. “It doesn’t exactly fit into your precious rulebook, does it? The strait-laced good girl isn’t supposed want to fuck her brother. Even if they’re not actually related, and there’s no blood shared between them. Even if he makes her come harder than anyone’s ever made her come in her life.”

“Stop it,” said Jay.

“It’s a real fucking shame, watching you deny yourself just to win good-person points in this imaginary little game you’re playing alone. Because I could make you very, very happy, Jay. If you let me, I could fuck you so well . But what do I know?”

He released her hand. “I’m just a boy.”

“Nick.”

Jay retied the sash around her waist—covering herself up to her throat, he couldn’t help but notice. “Please. It’s so hard to talk to you when you’re like this.”

“It’s Nicholas. You only call me Nick when you’re trying to push me away.”

He ran his fingers through his hair in agitation after a glance at his watch. “I suggest you get ready. Your car’s coming in an hour and I know you’ll want to do your hair before you leave.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

She put her hand on his arm—and yes, she had that look in her hazel eyes, the one that tugged at his insides like a fishhook and made him feel like a monster. “But what you said—it isn’t true.”

“You think it is.”

Jay blinked, and part of him softened unwillingly when a tear slid down her cheek. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to do what you’re asking me to do.”

“To, what? Fuck me? Love me?”

She shook her head and started to turn away, but he stepped into her path.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry. But if you want a future with me, you need to understand: I’m not a boy anymore—I play to win.”

“You did win,”

she said hollowly.

“I didn’t win shit, Jay. You fuck me in the dark. You have to come to me in the light where I can see you. Where everyone can see you. I want people to know you’re mine. You’ve owned me for years—body and soul. I’ve been a slave to your fucking ghost.”

She stepped back from him, gripping her throat. And then she turned and fled, her skirt kicking up in a swirling cloud as she took the steps to her room two at a time.

The door slammed behind her, echoing hollowly in his chest. Nicholas drew in a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and began putting away the mostly-untouched food. His eyes kept flicking to the staircase, involuntarily tracing the path she’d taken as she’d fled from him once more.

It felt like she’d taken his heart with her.

*****

You have to come to me in the light.

Jay hefted her suitcase off the baggage carousel with more force than necessary ignoring the pain that flared along her shoulders. A man in a business suit gave her a look she ignored.

The moment she stepped off the plane, she had felt the blast of the cold bay breeze through the gaps of the jetway. It whipped through her curls, filling her nose with the familiar briny scent of the cold Pacific ocean, detectable even over the caustic burn of jet fuel.

Just like that, her brain was inundated with thousands of half-forgotten memories. Lying about why she couldn’t have her friends over so they wouldn’t see the pole in the living room. Constant feelings of envy when they would go over to each other’s houses, attended to by their very normal parents, and feeling infuriated that she would never, ever be able to reciprocate.

Waking up in the cold apartment alone, hoping her mother would remember to bring home dinner and terrified that she wouldn’t come all.

The way the men at the Beat and Tease stared.

The predatory eyes of those men in the strip club had followed her throughout childhood, threatening a violence she could never properly put to words until her stepfather had laid it out for her in very stark terms just five years later. Then, she understood far too clearly.

I’ve been a slave to your fucking ghost.

She gripped her wrist, feeling the phantom weight of a bracelet that had doubled as a manacle. Nicholas’s mother’s diamonds had been that heavy, too, when he’d fucked her in them.

Her heart began to pound as she walked fast down the terminal, dodging the slow-moving people around her as she wheeled her suitcase. She was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and yet she kept catching people staring. Looking at her—almost as if they remembered her.

But the city didn’t remember anyone. It paved right over you with all of that concrete anonymity. That had been its appeal when she came here almost ten years ago. She had wanted to lose herself in the hustle and bustle of the crowds, to find a place where she could forget the bad things that had happened to her and just fucking move on with her life.

But instead, the path she had been running on had dead-ended to Nicholas, and he had brought her back to the same beautifully gilded hell from which she’d been trying to escape.

I’m home , she thought, staring at a mural of the familiar cityscape painted on the wall. The Transamerica building, Russ, St. Regis, and Jasper. She knew their shapes and silhouettes by how they pierced the sky, but looking at it no longer felt like home. It no longer felt like anything.

There was a French word, jamais vu , for when the familiar began to feel alien. Jay, as she turned from the mural and made her way back out to the street, thought of how many times she had spent breathing this very air, and wondered why it tasted so strange on her tongue now.

I grew up , she thought sadly, and it grew on.

In the past, she would have simply taken BART home from the airport—their station was right there—but Nicholas had given her cash for a cab, and heading down the dark, concrete enclave of the taxi stand, she was glad for the extravagance. Remembering the purse snatcher who had attacked her on her way to work, Jay held her bag and suitcase tighter.

One of the taxi drivers had his lights on and the ID prominently displayed. Jay leaned into the open window and asked if he’d take her to the address of her old apartment.

“Sure thing,”

he said, popping the locks on the door.

She looked at her phone while the driver loaded her suitcase into the back. Nicholas had already sent her a message. It says your plane landed. Are you through customs yet?

He was tracking her flight? Oh, who was she kidding? Of course he was.

I’m flagging down a taxi now.

Good. Send me a picture when you get home.

What kind of picture?

The kind where you have your clothes on.

Heat crawled up her throat. As she began her response, she must have been making a face, because the taxi driver was watching her in the rearview mirror when she looked up again.

“Who are you messaging?”

he asked casually. “Your boyfriend?”

It felt like fishing to find out if she was alone. Some of the men at the strip club had done that to her mother— How does your husband feel about you doing this? He’s a lucky man, having someone like you at home. Jay gripped her phone tighter, tilting the screen towards herself. “My husband,”

she lied. The words felt a little too comfortable rolling off her tongue and she wouldn’t let herself think about why. “My flight was late. He wants to know where I am.”

The driver made a sound of amusement and she saw his eyes flash briefly towards the mirror again, filling her with the urge to check her hoodie and make sure it was still zipped. “Lucky man,”

he remarked. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have you back.”

(someone like you)

“Um,”

said Jay, keeping her eyes on her phone. Are you still there?

Yes .

My driver is making me uncomfortable. He just asked if I was texting my boyfriend and I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. Will you talk to me until I get home?

Send me a photograph of his license. I can get him fired.

I don’t want you to do that. I just want you to talk to me so I don’t have to talk to him.

The text bubbles hovered and then disappeared.

Fine. Text me whatever you want and let me know when you’re home.

It sounded like a brush-off and after the way they had parted, it probably was. She swallowed back the raw feeling swelling in her throat, wondering why she felt like crying.

She stayed glued to her phone, playing her favorite cat game as the driver, who was apparently feeling chatty, continued to make conversation. She answered his questions about what she was doing in the city and how long she’d been married with clipped, monosyllabic answers, though that didn’t seem to slow him down at all and she was too afraid not to respond.

She wished she hadn’t given him her address. At least the complex was large, and on a fairly busy street. You couldn’t even access it from the outside without a key unless someone else let you in. For a girl on the run, that had been a major appeal.

The driver put her suitcase out on the curb with an unnecessarily loud grunt. Jay tipped him 20% even though she knew Nicholas wouldn’t have wanted her to. But it was worth the please-don’t-axe-murder-me money just for the peace of mind.

Which reminded her.

I’m home , she texted Nicholas, shifting her suitcase to one hand so she could juggle her phone and the key with the other. The smell—oh god, it was exactly the same, wasn’t it? Cheap lemon carpet cleaner and the musty backwater smell every building in this area got during rainy season when all the pipes backed up.

She climbed the steps to her apartment, grumbling a little as she tried to juggle all her things. She dropped her phone twice, swearing before looking around guiltily. The walk had never seemed this length before. And the stairway was so . . . small and narrow. Nearly claustrophobic.

When she finally got to her door, she threw herself into it with relief—and then she stopped, and stared, feeling the open space at her back like a great, sucking void.

Her room looked smaller than she remembered.

She did up the latch, chain, and deadbolt, leaving her suitcase by the door to take in her old space. The answering machine was blinking angrily (“I can’t believe you have one of those,”

Lily had said, the first time she had seen it. “Who uses a landline in this day and age?”).

Over by the window was her favorite blue chair, positioned in front of a statement wall she had carefully assembled by thrifting at the nicer shops in the Haight. Her rock collection was on the window sill, so the crystals would glitter in the pale sunlight, and over in the corner, folded up, was the little card table that doubled as a dining table because she ate all of her meals alone.

Jay fell back into the chair, letting herself be absorbed by the plush suede. She was vaguely aware that her hands were shaking, that a cold spot had formed on the very tip of her nose. She unzipped her hoodie and balled the yellow fabric up as she kicked off her old Converse, before bringing her knees up to her chest. As if that could fill the emptiness.

She had tried running away but glaring reminders of the past were everywhere she looked, standing out like colorful bricks in an otherwise white wall. Whether it was the gypsum rose that Nicholas had bought for her or the CD he had fucked her to during that very first time, he had cast his net wide and thoroughly trapped her in it.

What did it say about him that he chose to remain in the house where both of them had suffered so much? How could he stand it? Even after purging his father’s belongings in a gratuitous display of violence, he still slept in what had once been his father’s bed.

If he were a very different type of man, Jay might have called it martyrdom, but Nicholas’s particular brand of destruction had always radiated outward, not inward.

Staring out the window, past her rocks and into the alleyway, Jay thought, I don’t know if I’m strong enough not to be consumed by him this time.

Her pocket buzzed, right on cue. Where’s my picture? he demanded.

Jay shook out her hair a little and snapped a blurry selfie. Creep.

I’m your creep , he responded easily. You look hot. Is that what you were wearing in the taxi?

A lick of shame went through her as she adjusted her old Adidas tank top, belatedly realizing that her bra straps were showing. Not that it makes any difference, but no. I had a sweatshirt on.

You still should have sent me his license.

No, Nicholas. What are you doing? She glanced at the clock. You’re up late.

Just signing some documents in bed. Is that your apartment? It looks small.

It’s one small CORNER of my apartment, yes.

Nicholas sent a picture of his master bedroom. She fought back an eyeroll when she saw that he’d purposefully included the sitting area and en suite bathroom. It looked like he’d been drinking alone. There was an open wine bottle on the low table and beside it, a dirty glass.

You live in a mansion. We are not the same. Now wash that glass and pick your pants up off the floor. You’re a grown man.

Funny, I thought I was a selfish boy.

Ugh. Jay set down her phone and went to the bathroom to wash the airport germs off her hands. Then she unzipped her suitcase and changed into a pair of comfy shorts, but she didn’t bother packing. She wouldn’t be here very long. While she was deleting messages off the answering machine she thought she might actually get rid of, her phone buzzed again.

How many square feet is your emotional support shack?

God, could he be any more annoying? It’s not about the size. Location is the most important thing here. I live in a very good spot in the Mission. Everything in the city is small.

That explains so much about your ex.

I don’t know what you expect me to say to that.

Tell Daddy how much you’re going to miss him tonight when you’re sleeping all alone.

Jay set the phone down. This time, her hand trembled. She brushed her teeth savagely, noticing with some moroseness that the mildew problem in the bathroom had returned in her absence.

There was another message waiting for her when she returned. She opened it half-heartedly, and then sucked in a sharp breath.

He’d sent her a shirtless picture of himself lying in bed. His dark hair was mussed by the pillow, which he’d propped up against the headboard to work. He had his free hand under his jaw, in a calculated pose of study, which was doing interesting things to the flexed muscles of his hirsute chest. The picture cut off just above his abdomen and the dusting of hair trailing down from his navel, but it wasn’t hard to imagine what was—or wasn’t—beneath the border of her phone screen.

If you beg me , said the accompanying text, I’ll send you the uncensored version.

I guess that’s why his pants were on the floor , she thought.

She often wondered if Nicholas only wanted her because he didn’t know how to be with anyone else. He’d confessed to her once that he thought it was hot that they lived under the same roof, and though he’d walked that back quickly enough after gauging her reaction, it had held the ring of truth to it. Proximity made her easy; it made her his ghost .

To her knowledge, he’d never had a real girlfriend. And despite his intensity, he never let people get close. Except for her. Then he was too close, all the time. Like a haunting.

God, the way he looked at her—

She might have called it adoration, if it weren’t for the undercurrent of a violence that ran through those glances like a livewire, shocking any remnants of sweetness into cringing submission.

She looked down, guiltily, at her screen, and saw that he was typing.

Quid pro quo, little bird. You can leave the necklace on.

Jay could imagine it—that was the worst part. How easy it would be to take off her clothes for him, as she had so many times before. To do what he told her to do.

All their lives, their relationship had been tainted by their respective need to prove to one another that they were more than their parents, even as they fell into that selfsame cycle of dominance and capitulation. If he wanted her to meet him halfway, it had to start from a place of mutual respect and not because she was convenient or biddable.

Nicholas needed to understand that if he really wanted to love her, he couldn’t bully her into submission every time she did something he didn’t like.

She might have actually believed it, too, if she weren’t currently saving his photo to her phone.

Goodnight, Nick , she wrote. Don’t stay up too late.

It went to ‘read’ immediately. And though she waited, there was no response.