But I had to wonder…would we really be able to do this? Keep up the games? The excitement? The passion?

“People don’t live like we do, Michael.” I turned my head to look at him again. “They go to movies. They cuddle in front of fires…”

“I’ll fuck you in front of a fire,” he retorted, spinning me around and smirking as I laughed.

But then he came in and leaned his lips into my forehead, speaking quietly. “Other people don’t matter to us, Rika. We don’t let their rules contain us. What we can and can’t do is irrelevant. Who’s going to stop us?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, elation sweeping over me as I tilted my head back, staring up at the high ceiling.

“What?” he asked.

I inhaled a deep breath, my veins charged with excitement. “Our house,” I mused. “I can’t believe this is ours.” And then I met his eyes. “I love you.”

He grabbed my face and kissed me, his warmth spreading down my body. “I love you, too,” he told me. “So is that a yes then?”

I nodded. “Yes.” But then I popped my eyes wide and pulled away. “The catacombs!” I blurted out. “They’re not filling them in, are they?”

He laughed. “No. They’ll stay accessible.”

I dropped my arms and walked for the door, slipping off my coat and hanging it over the scaffolding.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he asked.

I spun around, cocking my head coyly. “You forgot to get on one knee.”

He snorted. “Well, it’s a little too late, Rika. I already proposed.”

“You can still get on your knees.” And I crooked a finger, turning back around.

“Well, the contractor said he might stop by today to do some more assessments,” he warned.

But I only grinned and shot him a challenge over my shoulder as I opened the door. “Are you tapping out?”

He shook his head, his mischievous eyes telling me everything I needed to know as he walked toward me.

He was always game.

And thanks to his tutelage, now so was I.

He’d corrupted me.

THE SMELL OF LILIES AND RAIN drifted into my nose, and I chased it, burying my face into the pillow.

Rika.

Sleep weighed heavy on my eyes, and I put out a hand, smoothing it over the sheets and searching for her next to me in bed.

But she wasn’t there.

I blinked, forcing my eyes open. Alarm set in as I turned over and propped myself up on one elbow, quickly twisting my head around to look for her.

And I immediately found her.

I relaxed, a grin lifting my lips as I watched her in the shower, the one that sat in my bedroom as a feature in my Delcour apartment.

Our apartment.

Within a month after everything had happened at the yacht, I moved her in. She slept here every night anyway, and since Will wanted to be close, we gave her apartment to him.

Kai, on the other hand, opted for distance. He bought an old Victorian on the other side of the city, and I wasn’t sure why. He could’ve had any apartment he wanted here, and I didn’t see the value in the black brick monstrosity he’d purchased that should’ve been condemned.

But for some reason, he wanted to be on his own.

Rika ran a loofah down her arms, soaping up her body, and I turned on my side, propping my head up on my hand as I watched her.

She must’ve sensed me, because she turned her head, smiling at me over her shoulder.

She placed her foot on the edge of the tub and bent over, running the loofah down her leg slowly and playfully, knowing what she was doing to me with her fake, innocent little smiles.

The rainfall shower fell over her body, but her hair wasn’t wet, since she had it tied up in a loose bun. And despite my growing erection under the sheets and the smell of her body wash filling the room, I stayed put, just watching her.

The reward for my patience would come soon enough.

Sometimes, I just had to watch her. I had to keep my eyes on her, because it was still so hard to believe that she was real. That she was here and mine.

I’d asked myself a thousand times how we got here. How we found each other and made it here.

She would say that it was Devil’s Night.

Without the events of that night, I wouldn’t have challenged her. She wouldn’t have learned how to be strong and fight back or how to own who she was and save herself.

We wouldn’t have been locked palm to palm, trying to push the other one down, and we wouldn’t have made each other the people we were now. Everything happens for a reason, she would say.

She would say that I built her. That I created a monster, and that somewhere during the blood, tears, struggle, and pain, we realized that it was love. That all sparks lead to a flame.

But what she failed to remember was…our story started long before that night.

I stand outside my new G-class, leaning back against it with my arms folded over my chest. I have shit to do and places to be, and I don’t have time for this.

Turning over my palm, I look down at my phone and the text from my mom again.

Stuck in the city, and Edward is busy. Pick up Rika from soccer practice, please? 8 p.m.

I roll my eyes and check the time on the phone. Eight-fourteen. Where the hell is she?

Kai, Will, and Damon are already at the party, and I’m late, because why? Oh, yeah. I guess being sixteen and finally getting my fucking license means playing chauffeur to thirteen-year-olds whose mothers can’t get off their drunken asses to pick them up.

Rika walks out of the soccer complex, still dressed in her red and white uniform and leg pads, and stops, seeing me standing there.

Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying, and I can tell by the way she stiffens that she’s uncomfortable.

She’s scared of me.

I hold back my smile. I kind of like how she’s always aware of me even if I would never admit it out loud.

“Why are you picking me up?” she asks softly, her hair pulled back in a ponytail with fly-aways floating around her face.

“Believe me,” I shoot out sarcastically. “I’ve got better things to do. Get in.”

And I turn around to open my door and climb in the car.

I start the engine, shifting it into gear as if I’m not going to wait for her, and I see her walk hurriedly around the front and open the passenger door, climbing in.

She puts on her seatbelt and stares at her lap, remaining silent.

She looks upset, but I don’t think it has anything to do with me.

“Why are you crying?” I demand, trying to act like I don’t care if she answers me or not.

Her chin shakes, and she puts her hand to her neck, touching the fresh scar from the accident that killed her father only a couple of months ago. “The girls were making fun of my scar,” she says quietly.

And then she turns her eyes on me, looking hurt. “Is it really that ugly?”

I look at it, feeling anger. I could get those girls to shut up.

But I push down my emotions and shrug, acting like her feelings don’t matter.

“It’s big,” I answer, pulling out of the parking lot.

She turns back around, her shoulders slumping in sadness as she drops her head.

So fucking broken.

I mean, yeah, she lost her dad recently, and her mom is caught up in her own misery and selfishness, but every time I see Rika, she looks like a feather that will blow away with the slightest breeze.

Get over it already. Crying’s not going to help.

She continues to sit quietly, so small next to me, since I’m nearly six feet now. And while Rika isn’t short, she looks like something that has melted and is about to disappear altogether.