Page 116 of Arrow

He went still, as if there were a sin in the honesty. Then, he dragged me down and bit back.

* My beautiful viper

25

TWENTY-FIVE

HARLOWE

By noon, a single houseman in a starch-white shirt brought us espresso and a raw tray of fruit, eyes assessing the evidence of what we’d done to one another. Naked except for the chain, I ate while Arrow watched me from the unmade pit of the bed, halfway through the coffee before he finally spoke.

“You’ll never be safe with me, you know. Not for a day.”

Licking strawberry juice from my wrist, I met his gaze. “Is that a threat, or a promise?”

Arrow’s smile was an answer all its own. “It’s my favorite kind of truth.”

He flicked the chain, letting the pendant at my throat tremble. He watched the pendulum sway, then leaned over, teeth grazing the A so gently I almost missed it.

“We might have to make this permanent,” he said. “The city loves a wedding. But they live for a legend.”

I wanted to tell him that I was allergic to permanence, that even the idea of forever made my skin prickle with old shame. But biting the inside of my cheek, I let him imagine it, let myself imagine it, for a second, what it would be like to be haunted on purpose. To make a home out of wreck and want.

When he fucked me a fourth time, it was slow, almost lazy, as if indulging in a decadent final meal before the world returned in full color and sound. His hands moved with deliberate patience, mapping every bruise he’d left, every mark that proved I’d survived him. This time, there was no violence in it—just the steady, relentless pressure of a man who knew exactly how to unravel me.

Afterwards, he guided me to the shower, washed my hair, and knelt to soap the bruises ringing my thighs like garters. Now and then, he would press his mouth to a new scrape, as if to apologize for the violence he’d written into my skin.

It worked.

By the time hot water scalded my aches to a soft hum, I’d stopped measuring how much of myself was left and started quantifying how much I wanted him to keep.

We dressed, and the oversized black off-the-shoulder sweater and leggings felt like armor after a night spent naked. Arrow wore a fitted navy long-sleeve shirt with jeans that hugged his muscular thighs. He ran a comb through my hair, smoothing it behind my ears as if rehearsing a new protocol for touching me.

The minute he finished, he flicked the television to a news channel. His expression didn’t change even when they showed angles of the party from last night, my body and his orbiting each other at the center of every frame.

“Look,” he said, tapping the remote’s mute with a knuckle. “You made the cover.”

There I was, in dark red lipstick, staring out from the front page. The camera had caught my chain, the bruises, even the liquid stare down my face as Arrow’s hand gripped my hip. The anchorman smiled through it, mouth promising reconciliation, headline screaming war.

“At least they spelled Virelli right,” I muttered.

Arrow laughed. It was the raw, honest sound I’d only just started to get used to. He came up behind me, arms snaking around my torso, chin on my shoulder, holding me in the kind of embrace that could be nurturing or lethal.

Twisting to face him, the urge to run was still there, like a phantom limb. But the more honest urge was to bring him to the floor by his hair and never let go. I knew he could sense it, the way predators smelled blood in the air. He lifted me up, and brought me straight into his lap, elbows bracketing my ribs.

“I have to take care of some business in the city, and I’d feel better if you stayed in my penthouse in the building Atlas owns.”

“Arrow Romanov owns a mansion and a penthouse? Now you’re just showing off.”

“It’s the only way to get some fucking quiet in Manhattan,” he said, then nipped the top of my ear hard enough that I squirmed. “You’ll be safer there.”

“Have you always been like this?” The question came out softer than intended, as his hands lazily traced from hip to spine and back. “I mean, I know the reputation, the old stories. But this⁠—”

I let the words hang. The marks on my body said more than I ever could.

He considered my question. “I don’t believe history repeats. I think it distills.”

There was something in the way he said it, eyes glazed and distant, that told me he’d seen the future, and it wore my face.