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My heart goes wild.
He leans in closer, studying me, breathing a little faster than he was before. Full lips part. Is this how rabbits feel when they’re about to get eaten by a fox? Do they notice every tiny, beautiful detail of their killer?
“We—” My mouth is dry, and it’s not only from fear. It’s from a want I’ll never admit to. “We could talk about it. What happened. If you—”
Jameson leans in until his mouth is an inch from mine. “I don’t want totalk. I want to get started. Get inside.”
9
JAMESON
Itake her back inside, lock the door behind us, and put her on my round rug.
The rug seems to scare her, which is hilarious. It’s an innocent rug. It’s never burned anyone alive, or signed off on making a bunch of orphans destitute, or kidnapped a person.
I leave her there, naked, trembling,gorgeous, goddamn it, and go to wash my hands in the kitchen sink. Her bag goes on a hook by the door. Snowball is in a corner of his cage, his head tucked down to his neck, all snowball-y as hell. He titters quietly, like he’s dreaming, but doesn’t sing.
At the sink, I nod hello to the teacup. It’s an antique. White, with a delicate gilt pattern on the outside and blue around the inside rim. If I look at it long enough, I can let the rest of the cabin fade away. Let my mind replace it with the house we lived in when my mom was still alive to drink tea out of this teacup.
I destroyed the rest of the matching set. It’s in a landfill somewhere, resting, the way my mom and dad are parked at the cemetery.
What’s left of them, anyway.
Part of me is there, too. It’s the part that believed in fairness and justice and growing up into someone admired by children and old people. I wasn’t there with my parents when the building went up, like Mason was. I died later, after he was out of the hospital.
Maybe it’s the partial death that’s made me into a crime scene. That’s why you never half-ass anything. You’ll spend the rest of your life going too damn far to make up for it.
You’ve gone too far,that voice whispers, and it sounds enough like my mom that embarrassed heat comes to my cheeks.
I haven’t, though. Nobody’s gone far enough. That’s why I’m here, like this, with a teacup instead of a mother who’s alive.
I go back to my hostage. Captive. Whoever she is.
Lily lifts her chin as I come back into the living area. She hasn’t moved an inch from where I put her on the rug. Smart. I’m not in the mood for chasing her around anymore tonight. I will, if that’s what she’s going to insist on, but I don’t want to. All the adrenaline has left my body and my muscles ache. The one thing that’s keeping me going is the cabin.
I don’t have to play a part here.
I was planning to loom over her, intimidate her some more, but the couch is inviting as hell. It would take more self-control than I have to resist sitting down, so I do. Lily’s eyes follow me while I stretch out my legs.
“What did you mean bymake things fair?” she asks, her voice steady. Her hands are still shaking. She can’t hide that, especially not with her wrists tied in front of her. The position is doing incredible things for her tits. They could be in the Wikipedia entry forpert.And herhair. God, it’s lovely. It falls around her face, all messed up from running around and trying to run away and getting caught. I could make her stand here so I could look at her body all night.
Lily tips her head back an inch, eyes on the ceiling. Her hair falls over her shoulders, exposing the delicate skin of her throat.
In the lamplight, with that rope around her wrists, with her pert tits on display…
Fuck.
My cock takes all of two seconds to get hard enough to test the zipper on my jeans. I want to undo it and free myself from what’s abruptly a cage.
That would cross a line, this early in the evening.
“Are you going to answer?” Lily asks.
For a second, I think she’s talking to God.Thatguy won’t say a damn thing. Hard to believe the world hasn’t come to a consensus on whether he’s a spiteful all-powerful force in the universe or a dad who skipped out when he realized how much work a kid was going to be.
I’m once again consumed by her body. Whatwouldn’tI do to her?
A lot, it turns out. Again, I’m not one of those simpleminded motherfuckers who can only conceive of violence. Hurting herisonly part of the goal. I want to ruin her for anyone else. I want her to ruinherselffor anyone else. I want to sink so deeply into her mind that she can never get me out. I want her half in love with me, begging me not to leave, when I drop her back into her life without a backward glance.
