Guilt. I was feeling guilty. Goddammit.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Len scoffed. “You’re made out of the same cloth.”

“Don’t poke the bear,” I warned.

“The bear poked me first! The bear tore me to shreds. Arabella is out for my blood.”

We were not talking about the same fucking bear, that’s for sure.

“Yeah, well, at least she sucks cock,” I deadpanned.

Len snapped her mouth shut. I heard her body shifting, standing up in the dark. She was unsteady, but humming with hot energy that made me want to rip her clothes off. I heard her bump against the wall, and after a few seconds of squirming, she managed to tug her phone out of her pocket and turn the flashlight on. Her blonde hair glowed like charred gold, and her face looked even younger under the white light. She moved the phone around, examining where we were.

“Christ,” she breathed, pointing the phone up to the ceiling in a circular motion, her eyes bulging.

“Nice choice of words.” I slipped behind her, one hand curling over her midriff and the other taking hold of her phone. I directed the light to the corner of the ceiling, where there was a line of rusty, crooked hooks. There were rope marks all over the oak beam, which was half rotten, soggy, and damp in some places.

“It’s a nine-hundred-year-old castle. You must’ve known there was history behind it. Secrets.”

The word secrets weighed heavy on my tongue, and we both knew why.

She said nothing. My cock pulsated, throbbing, begging to punish her for liking Pope, and I pushed it against her ass. I didn’t even think she noticed. She was too captivated with the place we were in.

“What happened here?” she whispered, her heartbeat wild and feral against my fist.

“Story is, the castle had been standing on a pilgrim trail leading to London. The Tindall couple, who didn’t have children and hated the fuck out of each other, needed a way to burn time. Didn’t help that the Tindall dude lost all the madame’s inheritance gambling and drinking. They needed cash, fast. They made money renting out the first floor to the pilgrims, who used it as a court of law. Criminals judged guilty of serious crimes were brought here. Any idea why?”

My lips fluttered over her collarbone. The air was chilly and moist—different from that in the cellar I worked in, which had been refurbished and air-conditioned so it could keep the mammoth statues Edgar Astalis kept there in top condition. This felt authentic. Old school. Creepy and medieval.

Her throat bobbed under my lips. Her breath still smelled like nail polish remover (damn vodka), and I still wanted to kill Pope, but she was mine now, which meant I no longer saw red.

“They executed them here?” she croaked.

I nodded into her skin. “Four hundred people have died here. Reputedly.”

“Wow.” She shuddered, her skin blossoming under my lips and fingers.

She was turned on by it. I slipped my hand into her shirt, moving my fingers up and down her stomach. She was so hot, and I was so cold, and it felt so fucking wrong I thought I was going to come inside my jeans right there and then.

We could never be together outside these walls, for more than just these a few weeks. Lenora would inevitably find a man who would give her the world, and I’d leave here and try to ruin said world, because that’s all I knew.

She was perfect, and I was nothing but a collection of flaws.

Besides, she doesn’t want a goddamn boyfriend, I reminded myself. And you don’t do the monogamy crap.

My little story kept her occupied, though, and took her mind off Arabella and Edgar.

“Can you feel the death all around us?” I curled my hand over the flashlight of her phone, so we were in the pitch black again. I dragged my teeth and stubble over her sensitive skin. “Does it make you wet?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked, ignoring my question. Her head fell sideways, giving my lips better access to travel along her collarbone.

I nodded into the crook of her shoulder.

“Really?”

“Ghosts of our past.”

“Oh.”

“Who drive us to be who we are. To do what we do.”

She trembled as my hand slipped into her elastic sports bra. Her tits were even warmer than the rest of her body. Silky and soft. I’d sculpted hundreds of tits in my lifetime, but never touched any. It shouldn’t have surprised me that they were so smooth. They were, after all, anatomically, fat.

I knew that, I sculpted that, I made it look real.

But I finally got it. The obsession with tits. Len’s were spectacular. I squeezed, breathing through my nose to keep the pressure in my balls in check. I wanted to make her forget Pope had a dick. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“You didn’t get me anything for my birthday,” she murmured, letting me kiss her neck and up her jawline while my thumb found her hard nipple and flicked it.

Another thing she never would have said sober. I stilled, my mouth on her skin, my breath uneven.

“I wasn’t expecting anything, to be honest. Not even a card. But a happy birthday, yeah. I expected at least that.”

I said nothing. My hand was still shoved inside her bra, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I was angry at her or at myself, and that was another brand-new feeling.

Just tell her happy birthday, a small, tiny, fucking crazy part of me urged. Manners are not a weakness. And you’re about to plunge into her ass bareback.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like a power battle, and for some reason, she always had the upper hand, even if she didn’t know it.

She felt out of reach, and it made me want to throttle her.

I shook my head. She stepped away from my touch. My hand fell from under her shirt. The chill of the room wrapped against it immediately. Len turned around to face me, took her phone from my hand, and flicked her flashlight completely off.

“I know I’m drunk, and I know you said I’ll regret the things I said tonight, but I honestly don’t believe I will.” Her voice was steady. Flatlined. “I’m done being considerate of my dad. He certainly isn’t considerate of me. As for you…” she trailed off.

I waited. Since when did I wait for people to tell me what they thought about me?

Never.

Who cared?

She was just another mouth—not even a particularly good one. She sassed way too much and gave me trouble.

“Finish the fucking sentence.” I loathed myself for giving her yet more power by wanting to know what she had to say.

“Our arrangement is over. Don’t come to my room. Don’t talk to me if you see me in the hallway. Stay out of my business. We’re done. And you never asked me—I know, I know, not that you care.” I heard the whine of the ancient door opening, and Len took a step out. “—if I believe in ghosts, too. But here’s your answer: I do, for the exact same reason you do. I don’t believe in literal ghosts, but I believe our past unleashes dog-shaped demons upon us, and they chase us, and that’s what keeps us running. Moving. Living.”

I said nothing, not really in the mood to correct her and tell her I hadn’t asked whether she believed in ghosts or not because I knew the answer already. It was what made her presence bearable. When we were in a room together, all our ghosts were waiting on the other side of the door. I could hear them.