Do Your Worst(72)

This time he felt it when she came. She knew because Clark let his head fall forward, burying his face in the crook of her neck as his thrusts finally went uneven.

As she stroked his back, taking him through it, Riley wanted to hold on to things she couldn’t have, things that had never been hers but felt like it. Now, in this moment as he spilled inside of her, as every candle in the room flickered, once, twice, a third time before they all snuffed out in unison.

“Hope you enjoyed the show,” Clark panted into the darkness.

They’d pulled off the ritual perfectly. But as he reached for her hand, brushing his thumb across her knuckles as they lay together under the sheets, Riley thought, Maybe it won’t work, even now. Because it was clear to her in that moment that she’d never managed to hate him, not really, not even once.





Chapter Nineteen


Someone was knocking on the door of Clark’s camper, ruining what had been up until then a very pleasant dream. Except—Clark peeled one eye open—he wasn’t in the camper. And there was a warm body curled across his chest, strands of hair that didn’t belong to him half in his mouth. And—he sat up urgently—the knocking wasn’t knocking. It was footsteps through the entrance hall, getting louder, closer.

“Hey!” Riley complained loudly, having woken at Clark’s abrupt movement.

“Hello?” his father called back as he appeared in the great hall’s entranceway.

His eyes blew wide for one terrible second as he took in his son, his son’s companion, the bed, their precariously covered nudity.

Immediately, he spun to face the wall. “Er . . . you lot all right?”

Clark scrambled to his feet, hopping around on the cold stone floor trying to get to his pants, stubbing his toe on a loose slab.

“Not exactly what a father expects to find when he drops in on his son at work,” Alfie called, his voice loud enough that he was likely trying to cover the sounds of frantic dressing.

Father? Riley mouthed at Clark, hastily wrapping a sheet around herself.

“On second thought, I’ll just wait in the entrance room, shall I? While you sort yourselves out.” Alfie ducked back the way he’d arrived.

As soon as his footsteps faded Riley rounded on Clark.

“What the flying fuck is your dad doing here?”

Clark didn’t even have time to think about how gorgeous she looked, sleep mussed and barefaced, midmorning light making her skin luminous. Okay, so he had a little time.

“He said he wanted to stop by the site when I spoke to him a few weeks ago. I’d completely forgotten.” In all fairness, there had been rather a lot going on.

“Be with you in just a mo’,” he called to his dad. Realizing that he’d yanked his T-shirt on backward, Clark had to do it again.

“He’s gonna think you joined a cult.” Riley gestured to the broken ring of salt, the melted wax from the candles, the crimson stain from where they must have knocked over the rowanberries at some point, her arm moving like an irate air hostess pointing out the various emergency exits.

A cult sounded like a rather sensible cover-up for what he’d actually been doing. Clark couldn’t imagine his father taking well to the idea of a mystical sex ritual, especially at his place of work.

Speaking of. “So, did last night . . . umm . . . do anything?”

You know, besides threaten to transform him body and soul.

Riley paused, closed her eyes, as if checking in with her senses.

“No.” She shoved the nest of her hair out of her face as she bent to pull on her boots. “I don’t know what’s going on. The candles flickering and then snuffing out right as we . . . completed the ritual seemed like a positive development, but the scent signature hasn’t changed this morning.”

Well, Clark couldn’t say he was totally put out. As soon as Riley broke the curse, he’d never see her again. That proposition was becoming rapidly more threatening than any of the other terrors the castle had thrown at them.

“Listen.” He reached for her elbow without thinking, but when her eyes fell immediately to his hand he backed off. Apparently whatever permission he’d had to touch her last night had been revoked. Good to know.

“I was just going to say, before we go out there, please, whatever happens, don’t let my father ask you too many questions.”

His dad was curious by nature and virtue of occupation both, and he picked apart living people with the same precision as he applied to the dead. At some point, Clark assumed he’d suppressed his sense of empathy in order to better enable him to pluck out little pieces of people’s hearts, taste them, and categorize their contribution to society.

Riley tucked her hair behind her ears. “Why would he wanna ask me questions?”

Clark had never seen her so fidgety. It made him almost calm in comparison—like the universe was out of alignment unless they were opposing forces in some capacity.

“You won’t be surprised to hear that I don’t get caught in compromising positions that often. At least, not like this.” It was why Patrick had been frozen out while Clark was merely put on a tighter leash. His father didn’t believe him capable of deception or, in this case, reckless disregard—because he didn’t expect much of anything from Clark.

Not to mention, the way I look at you is obvious. “My father will assume, I’m afraid, that this mess was all your doing.”