Mateo had recovered enough to call after her, demanding she return to him, but she just looked down at him from the walkway and shook her head.
“Go have a rest, Dead Man. I have a prize to claim.”
“You shouldn’t be alone with him, chica loca,” he insisted, shooting me a venomous glare as I looked back at him from my doorway.
“And you shouldn’t be such a wet Wanda, Mateo. Now stop trying to Pop block me and go get some sleep.” Brooklyn flicked her long, black hair and strode towards me without another word.
I met Mateo’s gaze and gave him a taunting smile as I tugged the door closed behind her, enjoying his yell of rage as he was left all alone downstairs with no one but his own hand to keep him warm tonight. Or this morning. I had no fucking idea what time it was actually, but I knew I was feeling dog tired after all that running about.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Brooklyn said and I turned to look at the room, remembering the way I’d hurled my bed over in a rage after finding out that she’d been arrested.
“I mighta gotten a bit upset when I saw the news report about them capturing you,” I admitted, crossing the space and shoving the bed back down onto its legs again before realising she deserved better than to sit in my self-pity sheets which hadn’t been changed since before the start of my dark spell. I quickly stripped the bedding from it, walking back out of my room and tossing the dirty stuff onto the walkway and flipping Mateo off as I found him still down there, glaring up at me like some kind of grumpy little ghost. Would he just stand there until the two of us came back downstairs? What if we slept for hours? What if we killed one another and never came down? Would he stand there until he died, his eyeballs drying out in his face in an eternal glare because his little feelings were all messed up by our girl picking my company over his? It was damn tempting to kill the two of us to find out. Then again, if I was dead and there was no afterlife, I’d never get my answer. And I didn’t much like the idea of killing my little psycho even if I was planning to follow her into oblivion moments after the act was complete. Nah. Not today.
Brooklyn had spotted the bags of her new clothes which I’d tossed into the open closet and was thumbing through them, so I headed into my bathroom and quickly filled the bowl I’d brought with me using the stash of Coco Pops I kept hidden in the secret panel behind the towel warmer. Mateo had kept weapons and cash in there when he’d owned this place, but I’d quickly thrown those out in favour of the Pops. There were far more valuable things in this world than money after all.
I returned to the room, finding Brooklyn pouting as she held some pink and blue fabric in her fist, and I cocked my head at her in question.
“I’m still all river stinky,” she complained, plucking at the jumpsuit she’d changed into like she was annoyed she’d dirtied it.
“Have a wash then,” I replied, bobbing my chin towards the bathroom. “I’ll get everything set up in here for when you’re done.”
I set the bowl of cereal down on the nightstand and she eyed it like a ravenous beast, seeming to decide she wanted to be clean before claiming her prize and scurrying towards the bathroom door.
I placed my arm across the doorway just before she could cross the threshold and leaned down to speak into her ear.
“You and I have things to say to one another, Spider,” I said seriously, and I couldn’t help but notice the little shiver which tracked down her body in reply to my words.
She turned her head to look up at me, devouring the space between our mouths until I could almost taste her. “I know, Hellfire. I haven’t forgotten the way you hurt me. And Glenda.”
“Who’s Glenda?” I frowned.
“The tiny duck who lives in my heart,” she whispered.
“I see.” I swallowed thickly, dropping my arm and letting her pass before I did anything insane like lean in. So that was two casualties to my dickish behaviour.
While Brooklyn showered, I made the bed up fresh and closed the blinds against the assault of dawning sunlight which was trying to blind me, then gave the rest of the room a quick tidy around. I grabbed the liquor bottles which had been sitting beside my bed and deposited them back in the kitchen, ignoring Mateo’s unending glare the entire way there and back.
When I returned to the room, I spotted a candle on the dressing table and lit it, wondering what the fuck I was trying to achieve with candlelight and deciding to blow it out again almost instantly.
But before I could manage that, Brooklyn stepped back into the room and I straightened quickly, trying to act like I wasn’t some kind of candle lighting fancy man and folding my arms in a way that made my biceps flex.
She’d changed once more, this time wearing a little sleep set made up of a silky cami and shorts combo which was baby pink on one side and baby blue on the other. Her ebony hair was wet and she’d braided it over her left shoulder, leaving her face open for me to inspect, not a scrap of makeup in sight and making sure I couldn’t for a single second forget how much younger than me she was. In mind, body, and soul. Yet there was still this connection there, this tug between us which wouldn’t ever let me ignore the fact that I’d found something in her which I hadn’t ever thought to find. A match. A soul akin to my own.
“No one’s ever lit a candle for me before,” she said, biting on her full bottom lip as she looked at it like it was something special and I cleared my throat, not sure what to do with the mixture of embarrassment and pride her words were shaking up inside of me. “Two-Toe Jill lit her hair on fire once while I was close by. But it’s not the same.”
“I was lighting my cigarette and it fell in there and did that,” I said, wondering why I was even lying about it. There was no cigarette and we both knew it. But some part of me must have still been clinging to my sanity, and it was clear to that part that I shouldn’t be doing anything to make her give me the big eyes the way she was. I shouldn’t have been encouraging it. It was wrong because I was wrong. A bad decision darkened by worse consequences. And I didn’t want any of my bad to come down on her.
Brooklyn frowned and I quickly changed the subject, crossing the room to her bowl of Pops and pouring the milk onto them before offering them up with only a little reluctance in my soul.
“I meant what I said,” I told her as she reached out to accept them with a look of reverence on her face. “You did real good with those fuckers who hurt you. Real fuckin’ good, Brooklyn.”
Her eyes lit up with pride and I bit my tongue against the words which wanted to follow them, the shield I was so tempted to place between us by pointing out how spectacularly she’d failed at evading the cops, but I didn’t do it. She didn’t need me to remind her of that and despite me knowing full well that I couldn’t be what she needed, couldn’t give her what she deserved, I simply had to steal that look in her eyes.
“We still need to talk,” she whispered and I nodded.
“Enjoy your Pops first. I’ll get myself cleaned up before we get into it.”
I turned from her and headed to get myself a shower, cursing and spitting and biting my tongue against the pain in my fucking cock as I washed and fought back the thoughts of her which kept pushing into my brain. Because every time my dick got excited, liquid magma seemed to boil its way through it from the new piercing and it was a hell unlike any I’d ever known before.