What Grows Dies Here

I just thought it might be coupled with some kind of cold, tight expression.

Not the grin that he treated me with.

A full-on smile.

With teeth.

It hit me square in the chest. I wasn’t sure why, but I got the feeling that not many people got to see this man smile.

It was absolutely breathtaking. Instantly, I felt greedy and protective over that smile.

“If I’m a villain, what does that make you, sweetheart?” Karson asked, teasing. “A princess?”

I bristled. “Certainly not. A queen at the very least.” I jutted my chin upward.

The grin widened. “Ah, of course. So I’m to worship you, then?”

My stomach dipped deliciously. I gulped. “Naturally,” I said. “And your queen demands to know your story.”

Karson dipped his head in reverence. “My queen’s wish is my command.”

My pulse quickened, thinking about the idea of having power over this man, wielding it benevolently, of course, if a little focused on multiple orgasms.

Karson regarded me. “For you to class me, correctly, as the villain, I gather that you have at least a rudimentary understanding of what Jay Helmick does and what in turn I do for him?”

I nodded once. “Yes, I have the general gist.”

His gaze got heavier. “And it doesn’t bother you?”

The question was a surprise. I had thought he was a ‘take me as I am or fuck off’ kind of guy. There was real curiosity in the question. Almost … concern.

“No,” I reassured him quickly. “It doesn’t bother me.”

He tilted his head ever so slightly, as if he was taking measure of my words.

I sighed. “That’s not just empty air,” I added. “Although I probably haven’t experienced the reality of your life, I’m not exactly innocent either. I’ve seen a lot in my life. I’m very aware that the world is not a pretty, carefree and safe place. That people are full of multitudes. That good and evil exist inside of everyone. If I had a problem with who you were, I certainly wouldn’t have let you fuck me.”

Karson’s eyes darkened ever so slightly, and I got a flashback of what had happened on the floor behind us, my nerve endings prickling with a reminder of that pleasure.

When Karson came back into focus, it seemed to me like I hadn’t hidden what I was thinking about.

I thought, hoped—despite my stomach full of mac and cheese—that he might cross the distance between us and remind me of what it was like to be fucked by him, but he started talking instead.

I wasn’t entirely disappointed.

“I grew up in the Midwest,” he began.

My eyes widened at this, he didn’t have a hint of an accent. His low baritone was steady, even, without origin. Then I remembered the slight twang when he’d called me darlin’.

“Poor,” he continued. “A dad who liked to smack my mother around. He eventually killed her.”

I flinched. Not at the information, but at the way he delivered it. Cold. But not without feeling. I could see something in his eyes. Something he’d had to harden in order to live with this truth.

My heart fractured, and I sank my teeth into the inside of my cheek in order to stop myself from crying right then and there.

“I killed him later,” he stated, matter of fact. “When I had the skills.”

Though no one had ever confessed murder to me before, I didn’t feel shocked or disgusted. Elation bloomed within me for Karson getting some kind of justice, being able to avenge his mother. That surprised me. I was against the death penalty—I believed that people could be reformed, that we needed to focus on fixing the problems instead of erasing them, burying them.