Hush

“What’s a girl like you doing drinking alone this late at night?” a voice asked.

Orion rolled her eyes. She had never, not once, been to a bar on her own with the sole purpose of picking up a guy. Then again, she’d never had the opportunity to do such things. But even she knew that was a line.

The owner of the voice and the cliché line was older than her, but not by much. He wore a pink T-shirt and chinos, ugly sneakers that she knew cost three hundred dollars. A haircut she suspected came with the same price tag. She wouldn’t have looked like money when she was younger, but she’d learned quickly the hipsters of today wore clothes similar to her cheap Walmart crap and somehow paid ten times as much for it.

Other than that, he wasn’t terrible to look at. A beard that was groomed within an inch of its life. Nice eyes. Good bone structure.

Orion hated everything about him, including how close he was standing to her. But she held fast. If she could watch a man die, surely she could do this.

She didn’t smile. She didn’t have that in her.

“Hi, I’m Brad,” he said when she didn’t respond, not seeming at all fazed by her silence. “You are an absolute smoke show, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

She gritted her teeth.

She downed the last of her drink and pushed off the sticky bar. Standing, she said, “Hi, Brad. I, in fact, do mind, and my name is simple. You ready for it?” She smirked, cupping a hand to her mouth. “It’s ‘fuck off, I’m leaving,’” she said, and walked toward the door.

Orion wasn’t entirely sure why she didn’t drive home after the bar—she could’ve used the sleep, after all. She also wasn’t sure why she continued on toward Maddox’s house.

She knew where he lived because she’d dropped April off a couple of times but had never gone in. April had stopped trying to convince her.

April had also texted her to let her know she was in the middle of eating the most bomb ass mac and cheese on the planet that Eric had cooked for her—probably trying to sober her up. So, Orion was safe on that front.

They lived in a nice townhouse in a good part of town. That didn’t surprise her. Their parents probably paid for it.

Maddox opened the door not long after she knocked. He was still awake, T-shirt slightly wrinkled. Hair rumpled, eyes bloodshot.

“Orion, what the—?”

“I need you to have sex with me,” she blurted. Not the most graceful of propositions, but she hoped it would work.

He blinked, moved slightly back as if she’d shoved him. She used that as traction to get inside the house, her heels clicking on the wood floor.

She saw a lot of April in the decorating, a mix of dark masculine tones and warm feminine touches. The throw pillows on the sofa. The vintage rugs. The huge framed print that read “Smash the Patriarchy.”

It wasn’t the stiff, upper-middle-class décor they had grown up with. Orion liked that. But she wasn’t here to read the interior décor. She was here for a purpose.

Yes, if she wanted to kill men, she should be able to stomach having sex with them. With him, at least.

Maddox closed the door and followed her into the living room.

His face was guarded, body language taut. His eyes assessed her. They appreciated her outfit, of course. Orion was too well in tune at experiencing the male gaze to not recognize that. But that quickly dissipated as he looked for signs of drug use, inebriation, anything that would explain this drastic change in behavior.

She couldn’t handle the inspection, cold and calculating as it was. She folded her arms across her chest. “Do you want me or not?”

His eyes snapped up. “Maybe you should sit down. We can talk—”

“I don’t want to talk,” Orion snapped. “I want to fuck. I want to fuck you. Either you do or you don’t.”

She was aware this was not the kind of conversation a woman had to try and seduce a man. You were meant to speak softly, make graceful yet feline movements. That was not inside of her. She didn’t know soft or graceful.

Maddox didn’t answer straight away. He folded his arms. A muscle in his jaw tensed.

“I’m not going to have sex with you,” he said, face stormy. He was pissed.

“Why not?” she shot back. “I’m too broken, too tarnished for you?” She uttered the words with force to cover up the shame and rejection that covered her skin.

He flinched as if she’d struck him. “No, Orion. Not because you’re broken. And you sure as shit aren’t tarnished. I would like to kiss you again. Move slowly with you. I want you—I always have. I think I’ve made that fucking clear. But I’m not going to have sex with you because you demand it. Because you’ve been drinking. I might not be able to read your mind, but I can see you’re doing this for some fucked-up, dark reason, and I’m not gonna be a part of it. I care too much about you for that.”