Page 65 of Heist in Paradise

My whole body was on fire. “Nope. Nothing.”

He moved so quickly that I had no time to react. One minute, he was by the door; the next, he was looming over me. He was everywhere, yet not a single part of him touched me.

“He likes you,” Madoc said in a soft, deadly voice.

I clutched my backpack tighter between us. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t like liars.”

I chewed my lip, and his eyes honed in on it with that same cutting intensity as earlier. I wasn’t bleeding this time, but I wondered what would happen if I just…bit down. Cut into the skin. Bled a little.

Girl. What.

I wrenched my head back with such force that I gave myself whiplash.

Madoc hummed, the sound mocking and satisfied, like a cat who’d finally caught the tricky mouse. He moved slowly, precisely, lifting his hand and touching my throat. Unlike all the other times, it was soft. Caressing.

Searching.

“You felt him here,” he said, ignoring the way I gulped nervously. “He’s big, but he used restraint. Good for him.”

My mouth dropped open. “You…?”

“Yes.” His eyes flashed. “I know everything about him.”

The possessiveness in his voice was unmistakable. The feeling it invoked in me was less so. My heart skipped, my face burned, and my knees were unsteady.

God, the absolute last thing I needed was to collapse at his feet. I didn’t trust Madoc, especially with that unhinged look in his eye. He was a textbook psychopath. Pretty and softly deceiving, possessive to the point of suffocating. I didn’t know if I was a threat to him or another toy for him to obsess over.

I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough to find out.

“Stop,” I said, my voice weak.

“Stop what?”

“Whatever game this is. I’m not playing.” I lifted my chin, faking a confidence I definitely didn’t possess. “You want Jax? You can have him. Our deal is over anyway.”

Madoc tapped my chin in a light reprimand. “You have it all wrong.”

“Do I?”

“I don’t want anything.”

For some reason, I believed him. He was smiling, but there was nothing behind it, a mask over a blank canvas. The only insight was his alarmingly sharp eyes, seeing everything, all my faults and lies.

I almost wept in relief when Ryle appeared at the door behind Madoc. He looked between us with a knowing grin that I immediately wanted to slap away.

“So this is a thing now, huh?” he said, leering at Madoc, who tossed him a lazy look over his shoulder. “Man, and I thought Jax had it bad.”

I cringed as Madoc turned and headed toward the door like nothing happened.

“You tell her yet?” Ryle asked him.

Madoc, the jerk, just breezed on by without comment.

I was still trying to catch my breath.

“Tell me what?” I asked, winded.