After that, Roman told me, “Good night, Snowflake.”

“Wait,” I choked on the word, feeling needy, too needy, but then again, he had called me his girlfriend, and my heart was about to burst every time I replayed his voice saying this word. “I can’t fall asleep. That’s why I jog at night. I always have nightmares.”

Another meaningful pause.

“Try. I promise I won’t hang up until I hear your gross snores.”

I fell asleep with my phone pressed against my ear.

When I woke up, the top of the touch screen was still green, and the call was still going.

“Good morning, SnortyPants.”

Neptune.

Dark. Cold. Blue. The ocean seemed morbid at six in the morning. I shuddered in my wetsuit, jogging in place without really feeling my toes. The sand was cold and tight, stretching like canvas beneath my feet, and I felt like I was ruining Roman’s art by being there. We were nearly done with our session. Beck, Edie, and Hale—whom Bane had re-introduced to me as “my real asshole, the source of all the shit in my life”—went on surfing while Roman stayed ashore with me, teaching me how to paddle with my stomach flat against it on the sand. I felt like an idiot. Like I was slowing him down. Then we moved to the water and he stayed by my side. Hale and Beck were laughing and coughing “pussy-whipped” every time we got near them, and Edie smiled at us, shaking her head. I felt bad hating on her for no reason. She was actually pretty cool. Not Gail-cool, but still good people. Not to mention the bump of her lower stomach was unmistakable. She spent her time sitting on her surfboard, letting the first rays of morning sun braid her yellow hair with fresh highlights.

She wasn’t after Roman.

She was after the ocean, nature, and everything it had to give.

After we were done, Roman invited me to take a shower at his place. It was the first time I’d set foot in his houseboat. Small, neat, basic. I knew Roman probably made enough to live in one of the candy-colored condos of the promenade, and I loved that he didn’t. I loved a lot of things about him.

What’s the antonym of hate?

Love. It is love, and maybe I should be the one to say it first.

“I can’t believe your place is so tidy.” I ran a hand over his coffee table, eager to leave a mark. His place was small and old-ish, almost like a sailor’s pad. He stood behind me, dumping his surfing gear by the door.

“Might’ve tidied up for you,” he said around a freshly-rolled joint.

“Might’ve?” I turned around, beaming at him.

“Please let me keep my balls for a little longer, Snowflake. See, I’m kind of attached to them. Also: literally.”

He’d made me laugh more in a few short weeks than I had in three years. I shrugged. “If you behave.”

Before I headed out to the promenade this morning, I’d packed a duffel bag with a change of clothes, knowing my shift started at 9:00 a.m., and I might not have time for a shower. I pulled out burgundy corduroys and a cute tank top the color of my eyes. I’d ransacked my closet earlier this morning to find something that wasn’t emo black hoodies and pants loose enough to fit three clowns and a convertible. I walked over to where I presumed Roman’s shower was, swaying my hips and knowing that he was watching.

I wanted to have sex with him.

I wanted to have lots and lots of sex with him.

I wanted him to make me feel the way only he could. Like I was beautiful, lethal, and strong. Like the old Jesse.

“And where do you think you’re going?” He snaked his arm around my waist and pulled my ass into his erection. I was still wearing the wetsuit, and my nipples puckered in my red bikini under it. He buried his face in my neck, dragging his hot lips to kiss the tattoo on my nape.

“I’m going to take a shower. I don’t want to be late for work.”

“Gail can cover for you.”

“She’ll kill me. Morning shifts are busier than hell.”

“You say shift. I hear shaft.” He gave me a shove with his dick, and I skipped into his bathroom. I peeled off my wetsuit alone, knowing that he’d stayed behind. That yet again, he would deprive me of what I really wanted. Him. Inside me. Making me feel desired and whole again. I dumped the heavy wetsuit on the floor with a thud and stared into the dirty mirror. My eyes were defiant, lit. A monsoon of emotions swirled inside them.

Bane stepped behind me, our gazes meeting in the slightly cracked mirror. There was a hunter in there, and I wanted to pull him out. Wanted him to chase me. His wetsuit was pulled down to his V-cut, his tattoos glistening against his tan. His blond, wavy hair was a rumpled mess. He stared at my stomach.

“I hate it,” he said simply.

I swallowed. “Fuck you.”

“I also love it,” he added. “This scar gave you claws. Can’t fucking wait for you to use them on me.”

I turned around, smiling sweetly. I was done playing games. I wanted him, all of him, the parts he reserved only for me and the parts that were communal property. Bane stared at my puckered nipples, his green eyes gleaming like morning dew on fresh grass. It was time for a good dose of reality.

“I got pregnant. I wanted to keep the baby. Stupid, huh? But I did. It was like the silver lining of The Incident. I was going to have someone for my own. Someone who would be faithful and loyal to me. Someone who would love me, no matter what. We could take care of each other, and she or he would never take their father’s side, because they wouldn’t even know them. It felt almost like revenge, as sick as it may sound. They took something of mine—my will, my power, my innocence—so I took something of theirs. But Pam forced me to have an abortion. I didn’t want to, but I was weak. I was too weak to scrape myself off the bed, let alone fight her on this.”

He pushed my wet hair away from my face. Bane had pressed me to talk about it the other night. Now he got his wish, and oh, how ugly was the truth.

“The truth is, I wasn’t a virgin when Emery tried to take my virginity, Roman, but something happened before. Something I can’t remember. The Incident wasn’t the first time I’d been raped.”

Bane’s nostrils flared, and his eyes leveled with mine. They breathed fire, and I was afraid he was going to tear the whole bathroom apart. I kept talking, knowing I was going to lose momentum if I dared to take a breath. “After what happened in the alleyway, I was so confused that I panicked. I didn’t know what to say or think. Pam solved this issue by walking through every sentence that left my mouth. She said if I screwed it up, we’d be forced to leave and Darren would dump us on the streets. The boys’ parents were breathing down my neck. Pam and Darren thought it was an orgy gone wrong, and that I was ashamed to admit it. Hell, even I didn’t believe myself for a while. I thought—maybe I did cheat on Emery. It took me a lot of time to understand just how played I was, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late. Everyone had already moved on. Well, everyone other than me.”

His thumbs pressed my cheeks, and he pulled me into a hug. I wanted to curl into his strong body and live there.

“For the past two years, time did not move. Technically, it did, but not for me. Not really. That night in the alleyway still chases me like it was yesterday. And in walks you. At first, I didn’t want you in the picture. My grief was still so fresh and pristine—I didn’t want anyone tarnishing it with hope. But you didn’t just walk into my life, Roman. You stormed into it. You left me no choice but to heal. Now I want everything. I want the job and the friends and my sexuality back. If you don’t fuck me, someone else will, Bane,” I purposely used the name he didn’t want me using. “I need this. Need this to heal me. To break me and to put me back together. To kill me and resurrect me. This is not about sex. Not all of it, anyway.” I gulped in a breath. “It’s about me.”

Bane swallowed, but didn’t say anything.

I shook my head, dropping my gaze down to my toes. Then I turned around and charged for the door, ready to flee his boathouse, even naked. I was done asking, and begging, and bargaining. I was done seducing, and luring, and hoping. If he didn’t want me after this admission, we were done.

I didn’t even want him to be my friend. Like I could really be friends with Bane Goddamn Protsenko. Every word to leave his mouth was foreplay.

“Jesse,” he growled. I ignored him, yanking my duffel bag to get my clothes. Before I could unzip it and pluck them out, Bane slammed me against the wall of his kitchen. The thud of my back crashing against it pounded between my ears. I was ready to slap his stupidly gorgeous face when I felt his cock springing free from his wetsuit, hot and velvety against my opening. He wrapped my legs around his waist and crashed his fist to the wall above my head.

“Fucking dammit, Jesse!”

“Leave me alone, then,” I yelled in his face. “Just let me leave.”

“Never,” he snarled, biting my neck. Hard. “And ever.” He dragged his nose down to my shoulder, sucking a sensitive spot on the curve of my collarbone. “And fucking ever.” He thrust into me, nailing me to the wall and filling me to the hilt. A moan escaped between my lips. He was big, and long…and bare.

“You want to be fucked?” he spat out the words, his face so intense I shivered under his touch. “Just remember, Snowflake—you fucking begged for it.”

He pounded into me, each stroke harder and deeper and more punishing. My body felt like a dormant nest of fireflies lighting up together in batches. I felt their lights flicking, their wings zapping over every inch of my flesh. I felt every inch of him inside me, the titanium hoop of his piercing scraping my walls, and it still wasn’t enough.

I was desperate. I was feral.

I clawed at his face, tears streaming down my cheeks and onto my neck, and he licked them, laughing as he fucked me harder, not giving much damn about who or what I was, just like he’d said he would. Taking me the way I wanted to be taken. Not gently, nor apologetically. Like an equal. Like a captured soldier, in a war where pleasantries and fake condolences weren’t necessary.