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With a scoff, he strides over there, disconnects it and rips the plug from the cord, dropping it to the floor. His eyes are pitch black as he turns to me and holds out his hand.
“Cell.”
I lick my lips, out of breath. “I don’t have one.” The lie comes so fast I didn’t even think it over.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
I shake my head. “Honest.”
He tightens his lips into a thin line as he presses the other hand to his wound, grimacing. “I’m not in the fucking mood. Give it to me, or I’ll tear this place to pieces, Ker.”
Tears well up in my eyes as I limp to the front door, my ankle pounding with pain, looking for my jacket. Then I remember it’s outside. I dropped it before I climbed in. I glance out the window, rain smatters against it.
“It’s… It’s in my jacket. Out there.”
He follows my gaze, strides through the room and pushes open the door. The wind tears through his long dark tresses, whipping them across his face. He forces the door shut again. “Well fuck it. That solves that, then. Got a computer? Any other means of communicating with the outside world?”
I glance at him warily as I, with a hand on the wall for support, get back to the table. “I have a laptop, but it doesn’t have Wi-Fi. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nothing works out here.”
“I’m really fucking aware of that. I can’t believe you settled here, city girl.”
I sit down next to Cece who is eating pasta with her hands, looking between us, interestedly.
“I had my reasons,” I mutter.
Christian comes up to us, raising a hand to my face, a thumb stroking away the wetness on my cheeks. I tense up so hard I think something inside me will break.
“Yeah. I— Never mind.”
He turns and leaves for the armchair, the crackling energy between us not diminishing in the least despite the greater distance. I try not to look at him, but it’s like there’s a magnet in him, pulling my eyes back, over and over, and every time I collide with his unreadable gaze.
Finally I manage to bring my focus back to the reason we’re here. My innocent girl. I glance back at Christian one last time before I move the chair and turn my back to him. I’ll protect her at all costs. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do.
Nothing.
Twenty-Four
Christian
Isit in the armchair in silence, teeth clenched to suppress the pain, as I watch Kerry feed our daughter and then disappear into the bedroom for twenty minutes, putting the little one to bed.
To my great surprise Kerry comes back out afterward. I would have thought she’d barricade herself in there. But I bet she feels a need to keep an eye on me. Her gaze is painfully dark and void of emotions as she warily sits down on the couch, her eyes trained on me.
My body has been screaming at me for a while now, and I have been biding my time. I have to spend some quality time with hot water and soap. I need to clean my shirt and look at the wound, get the dried blood out of my hair and tend to my knee. There’s no way in hell I’m doing that while she’s on the loose in the house.
“I have things I need to do. I’m gonna have to tie you up, Kerry. Where do you prefer I do it?”
Bouncing up off the couch her earlier look of exhaustion vanishes and is replaced by a fear so strong I can almost smell it. “What?Wait! No! Noway!” she bellows. She has risen so forcefully that the CD, still playing some random blues, hitches.
She tries to sidestep away from me, so I have to intervene and grip around her waist with my good arm. “I won’t hesitate to hurt you if you fight me,” I hiss in her ear. “Trust me I will, but it’s not my intention so just play along nicely and be a good girl.” I pant and wince from the pain of having to hold her still. My shoulder gets wetter, warm blood trickling along my arm.
Squirming and snarling, she tries to slam her head against my face. Her limbs are everywhere, and I realize I’m too weak. I won’t be able to hold her and that just won’t do. I shove her hard and she falls onto the couch, then I slam down on her.
“I was fucking trying to be nice,” I growl. Forcing her to stay down by sitting on her, I then cover her mouth and nose with my right hand. I could wrap my hand around her slender throat and squeeze. My fingers would probably fit all the way around. It’d be easier. It would also be sinister, cruel, a much more painful and damaging way to achieve the same result, and for some reason I have no will to hurt.
Her eyes widen and fill with tears as she tries to bend her head away, shaking it and pleading with me wordlessly to let her breathe as her legs kick behind my back, to no avail. I regard her attempts to get me off her. Even wounded and weak this is easy for me; I know what I’m doing and this will go either one of two ways: she can submit—and breathe—or she can faint from lack of oxygen.
I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt.
