Larry doesn’t answer.
Theclickof the switchblade reverberates around the warehouse, then the blade is once again at Larry’s throat. Larry stutters out a, “Y-yes.”
Grayson’s gaze shifts to me. “Spread your legs, love. Just like you used to do in your therapy room. Slowly. But leave them parted.”
My pulse flutters. “You noticed that?”
A slow smile curls his lips. “I noticed everything.”
I uncross my ankles and lean back onto my palms, letting my legs part open. Grayson’s gaze drops to the apex between my thighs, and I can feel the tangible weight of his stare as his tongue drags across his lips.
“God damn, so fucking sexy,” Grayson says. “Isn’t she sexy?”
Larry nods.
“Touch yourself,” Grayson tells me.
An immediate ache blooms in my core at his command. As I slip my hand beneath my black skirt, I see only Grayson. The man who challenged me, pushing me to the brink. I’m alive—truly alive—only when I’m with him.
Grayson’s chest rises and falls in time with mine, each breath strung with tension. The longing in his eyes pulls at the ache low in my belly, the throb descending farther, becoming unbearable.
I rock my hips, chasing the pressure against the hard container beneath me, earning low, appreciative groan from Grayson.
He fists Larry’s hair and yanks his head back. “Beware,” Grayson says, the gravel in his voice a threat. “She’s a temptress. Just look at her… Don’t you want her? Don’t you fucking crave her?”
Larry remains silent, yet the bulge in his pants speaks to his arousal.
Grayson sighs, long and breathy. “The truth is, you’re not worthy. She could snap your mind like a twig, then have you groveling at her feet, begging her to do it again, before you slit your own throat just to make the torment end.”
Moonlight bleeds across the concrete through a dingy window, catching the blade as Grayson flicks it back and forth, back and forth, silver glinting.
“Maybe neither of us are worthy,” Grayson continues, “but you’re absolutely fucking beneath her.”
The blade slips down Larry’s throat, and he’s shaking now. Curses and prayers fall from his mouth, melding together incoherently.
And Grayson’s intense stare is aimed on me.
Just as I selected a key to end a man’s life, Grayson is waiting for me to decide. Either way, Larry can’t leave here alive. He knows who we are. He knows too much. He will die by one of our hands.
Or by both.
I ease off the unit and move toward Grayson, summoned to him like light to a black hole, knowing there’s no escaping his gravity.
He towers above me, face carved in sharp, brutal angles and devastating beauty. I position myself directly opposite my lover, my fiend. With our victim between us, I reach out and lay my hand over Grayson’s. My gaze locks with his, steady and unflinching, as we drag the blade across his throat.
It’s not an easy kill. It takes strength. My grip on Grayson’s hand is firm as we force the blade deep, slicing through cartilage. Memories of steel hitting bone assault me. The vibration recoils through the blade as it cuts through muscle and tendon, sinking me into that dark cellar as my father’s hand used mine to take a life.
Understanding settles over me. Grayson never does anything without intention. The victim selection. The rushed kill. The warehouse. All my choices, yet always by his design.
Where I was fashioned into a killer by trauma, he’s offering me a reclamation. Liberation. Not just drawing me into his world—he’s making it ours.
There’s a brief moment of shocked uncertainty that covers our victim’s expression before blood beads in a dark red line across his throat. It then streams down his neck, a thick river coating his chest in a shiny red lacquer. His wet gurgle echoes around the enclosed space.
Warmth spreads over the back of my hand, the wet heat of blood. Copper mists the air, the scent of murder an aphrodisiac.
I’m watching our victim, but Grayson is watching me. His gaze touches me, tracking every shift of my features. Every breath.
Grayson releases the body, and it crumples to the tarp. He lets our victim fall without an afterthought.
