His arms return, faithfully. And his quiet words bear neither mischief nor teasing. “All right, darling,” he whispers, adding, “I love you.”
Bit by bit, step by step, maybe…just maybe…this will work. I’ll overcome the panic. I’ll regain control of my own mind.
And maybe, just maybe, once I have, I’ll find myself on the cusp of believing he’s telling me the truth.
Chapter Twenty-four
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Husband and strife.
Azalea
“Time’s up,” Malcolm says, seated with me on my couch, palms together, bare, warm.
Blinking out of the trance, I lift my attention from our fingers to his face. “How long was that?”
“Five minutes.”
Neither of us moves away from the other.
“Now, we survive for ten,” he says.
Ten whole minutes without rushing to the bathroom or a Lysol wipe.
Just a few days ago, I think that might’ve felt impossible. But, true to his promises, Malcolm has put me through torture this week. At home. At work. There’s scarcely an hour that goes by without him touching me somewhere then setting this cute little pink pig egg timer down. When it dings, I can grab a wipe or wash up.
The first day, I failed to hold out four times even though the longest he set the timer was a single minute.
The second day, I only messed up once.
The third day, he bombarded me constantly, and by the end of the day, I was too tired to realize he’d begun setting the timer as long as three minutes.
Now, ten minutes seems survivable. Because I’ve already survived a hundred things, and my brain has already been wrongabout my demise a hundred times. After five solid minutes of broken rules, I can survive for ten more.
Probably.
I glance at the coffee table, which holds both the little pink timer and my ceramic crow. They’re the only pops of color in the room, so long as I don’t count the man himself, seated before me like a dark shadow.
He doesn’t move to get the timer started.
I don’t mention it.
Instead, I settle my attention back on his hand, recalling the sensation of his fingers against mine. The warmth. The security. The size. His hands are a great deal larger than mine. I’ve never exactly considered myselfsmall, but next to him, I feel it. Deeply.
He’s a head taller, at least, and his shoulders…
I draw my touch down his hand, letting my fingertips graze his palm. Beyond our outstretched arms, he stills, ceasing breath, and I recognize the shift in him.
The more I’ve gotten to know him and the more time we’ve spent together where I haven’t been livid or overwhelmed by the resulting vibrations, the more I’ve noticed minor things in his character and behavior that make me wonder if I’ve ever known anything about him at all.
He’s careful.
Calculated.
A schemer.
But he’s also oh sodesperate.
