Page 18 of His Pet

“Fuck you, you depraved piece of shit.”

Lorenzo is silent. He sits on the bed staring at me with rage filling his eyes, but he doesn’t react. It only fuels my bravado, and suddenly Iwanthim to come toward me. Fuck luring him with kindness or complacency. Fuck making sure he has the key. Fuck who I was yesterday.

My mind races with power and I raise onto my knees fully. The knife drops to the carpet, but my heavy breathing drowns out the slight thunk. I ready myself for him to come at me, my hand at my side ready to go for the knife.

“Is something wrong, Lorenzo? You seem upset,” I mock.

“Yes,” he says, his voice terrifyingly even. “You’re ruining this.”

That steals some of my thunder, and my mind searches for meaning.

Ruining what?

Lorenzo stands, and I sit back on my feet. I tuck my right hand under my dress and grip the knife as tightly as I can. My shaking starts back up.

He takes a step toward me and turns around to face the bed.

Now!My brain screams at my body to move, lunge, attack, but I stay rooted in place. Lorenzo’s hands lift and he begins undoing the buttons on his shirt.

Now!

I slowly pull the knife from beneath my dress and stand, my knees wobbly.

Almost, I tell myself. I’m almost ready. This is the perfect opportunity. His back is to me. He’s within my reach. And he’s undressing. He could be gearing up right now to rape me. The guy is a criminal. A kidnapper. He’s scum.

He deserves to die.

I tell myself this over and over, but the anger I held onto earlier isn’t there egging me on. It ran and hid like a coward the moment Lorenzo stood. Now it’s just me, Amelia Norwood, about to end someone’s life.

Fuck.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, I wrap my other hand around the handle and bring the knife in front of me.

Lorenzo shrugs the shirt off, revealing a white undershirt and exposed shoulders. He pulls the undershirt off and tosses it to the ground. My eyes go wide, and my grip on the knife loosens.

Lorenzo’s back is littered with tiny white stripes that stick out in the dark contrast of his skin. He turns around to reveal the same with his torso. Scar tissue mars otherwise perfect, Hollywood-worthy muscle with a California tan so unfitting for this man. Even with his Italian lineage.

Air rushes in through my lips, and I realize they’ve parted. When I meet Lorenzo’s eyes, they hold disappointment.

Then I remember the knife.

I look down at it and gasp, shooting my gaze back up at him as if he might not have seen it.

He holds out his hand for it, and confusion surfaces, but I don’t give it time to settle. I shuffle back as quickly as I can and brace myself with the knife. The chain catches when I’ve gone too far, and it steals the air from my lungs.

“Get back!” I scream, standing and raising the knife at my shoulder.

Lorenzo takes a step toward me, and I slash the knife through the air. “I fucking mean it! Come near me and I’ll kill you!”

“You couldn’t kill me with my back to you, you coward. You couldn’t even bring yourself to try.”

That confusion surfaces again, and this time I let it take hold. He doesn’t sound surprised. He lookslessangry than he did earlier.

“Did you plan this?”

Lorenzo doesn’t answer, but the lack of one is enough.

He was fucking with me. I agonized over ending this man’s life, and it was just a game to him.

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