Shaking, he coughs and rakes air into his body, causing mine to move with the tremor of his. Because I’m straddling his hips. Because I amon top of him.
Panic erupts, and I attempt to flee. Before I can scramble off, Malcolm catches my thigh, grips, and welds my body to his.Heaving for breath, pain scattered across his features, he peers up at me with one eye closed.
A coarse swear exits his panting lips, and his grip skates up, higher, then flattens against my back.
“Sir—” I squeak.
He ignores my fragile protest in favor of forcing my chest to his, planting my cheek against his jet-black shirt, suffocating me in the scent of his body wash and detergent. Whatever masculine combination of aromas creates them, they’re strong. Strong like his arms, which curl around me now like a snake. His leather-clad fingers bury in my hair while his breaths regain some semblance of control. “Love,” he whispers, the word broken and strained.
I shudder as my mind threatens to shut down. I…can’t remember the last time I was hugged. My nerves aren’t handling the sensation very well at all.
Malcolm combs his fingers through my hair, refusing to give me an inch. He barely allows me the leeway to tilt my face up and find the wretched bruises around his throat. They’re building by the moment, getting angrier and angrier, in the shape of my hands.
Fear numbs me.
This is it.
It’sover.
I’m going to be caught. I’m going to be sent to prison. I can’t escape that fate now. I can’t. Even if I pull out of Junction’s schemes, whatever organization he represents is going to keep trying to kill Malcolm Swallow, and when they succeed, I’ll be a prime suspect because I’ll be a woman who strangled her boss in a hotel room while telling him to die. Repeatedly.
My stomach twists, terror gnawing at it as the frigid touch of reality consumes me.
“I adore you,” Malcolm whispers, like I didn’t very seriously just try to kill him. His fingers comb through my hair again. “I adoreyouso much. I want to see all of this. These beautiful, intense emotions of yours.” He swears, voice unbelievably rough. “I crave it, Azalea. You’re so beautiful. So precise. So…imprisoned by all these rules you have. You’re like a glass dove in a packed box, resting in a bed of styrofoam cut exactly to fit you. You’re motionless and hidden, and I can’t stand it. I want you on display. I want you shattered. I want every shimmering piece in my veins. I want youfree.”
Free?
Yeah right.
Tone soft and voice small, I whisper, “Youjustsaid you own me. Beingownedisn’t freedom.”
“It is if you choose it. I want you to pick me with your freedom, dove. I want you to feel safe enough to give me everything. I want your world wide open and limitless. I want you to see me as a tool for your eternity. Enslave me, my darling. Use me. Hurt me. Hold me. Can you not see how obsessed with you I am? If you want me dead, you needn’t burden your own sweet hands. Merely command me to kill myself.” His hoarse laughter rocks my entire body and echoes in my rattling mind. “It’s that simple, Azalea.” His fingers trail down my spine in a feather-light caress. “Oh, darling dove. What wouldn’t I do for you?”
Make sense.
Clearly, he wouldn’tmake sensefor me. Because…absolutely none of this is sensible. He has been horrible to me for two years, and in those two years, I haven’t done anything spectacular enough to warrant affection. I’ve come to work. I’ve done the job outlined in my employee agreement. That’s it. The most “endearing” thing I have ever done where it concerns Malcolm Swallow is more “commendable” than anything. And it is that Ihave endured his personality while restraining myself day in and out. That’s it. There’s no reason at all for him to beobsessedor think he’sin lovewith me, no matter how broken his idea of “love” is.
A low rumble emanates from him, and he nuzzles infuriatingly closer. “That was magical,” he whispers. “I never suspected you’d be the one to initiate.”
Initiatewhat, exactly? A murder?
Stiff, I remain motionless and mute while I try to ride out the waves of fear as they beat against my brain.
“I wonder…” he murmurs. “Does it go both ways?” His fingers skim my neck before the world shifts, and I find myself planted against the filthy, horrible hotel bed.
Like a dark agent of evil, Malcolm looms and closes his hand around my throat. Gentle delirium in his expression, he watches me as my eyes go wide. Red heats him, and he glows in it above me, painted crimson.
My flesh washes cold as a horrific realization dawns on me.
Choking…is a…thing. A romanticthing. A romantic thing that lunatics partake in. A romantic thing thatinnocentlunatics partake in forfun—or something—notfor premeditated murder.
Maybe…maybe I’m not screwed? Not totally, at least. Notyet.
Even with my handprints on his throat, I can plead romantic insanity still.
I’d just…have to fabricate…romantic interest…in this monster. And then I’d have to make it believable.
With his tattoo of the dove and azaleas on his chest, it might not be that much of a stretch to suggest we’ve been together for a while, especially since it’s healed, which means he got it at least a few months ago. All I need to do is bebelievably devastatedby his death instead of completely indifferent. I must act believably heartbroken because I was believably…in love…with him.
