“No, but couldn’t you, you know? Go back to their place instead?”
Even as I spoke the words, a thick band of jealousy wrapped around my heart. I tried to let it go. I hated Gav, at least that’s what I told myself. But even sitting here, I could feel his desire radiating out toward me. I could feel my own attraction, too, entwined with his.
He shook his head, as though dismissing a long-considered possibility.
“It’s not the same. With them, it’s only a sexual release. With you, there’s—I can’t explain. There’s a brightness to it.”
He touched my hand, his fingers slipping under my palm.
“Maybe it’s the idea that you’re mine. Forever. That I can do what I want with you. That I can kill you, if I want. Even if I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.” He spoke the last words quickly, squeezing my hand in his. “Whatever it is, it makes it go away. The urge.”
I shivered. This, this was what I wanted? It couldn’t be. And yet I did not draw my hand away from his.
“I talked with your friend. She misses you.”
I was so shocked that I almost dropped the towel. I clenched the terrycloth to my chest.
“She said you were a great person. Really smart. She wished she had told you that before you left.”
“Does she think I ran away?”
“No.”
I nodded sadly. Jules was the one person I knew would take up for me. She knew why I had run away before. As I thought about her, my eyes burned with tears. I would never see her again, not as long as I was stuck here.
Gav sat, watching me, his hand warm under mine.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. He dropped his gaze to my fingers. His thumb, muscled and thick, rolled around my small fingers, squeezing them.
“I don’t know. I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“I can’t stay here.”
“You can’t leave.”
It was not the truth I wanted to hear. Damn him! To never talk to anyone else - to never see Jules, to never walk in freedom outside. To be leashed, constantly, always on the end of a line connected to him.
I pulled my hand away. It was the only thing I could do. My one act of resistance, however small. He stood up from the bed.
“I’ll put a lock on the outside of the bedroom door, so I can leave you inside here when I go out. I’ll do it this evening.”
He made to go, and I realized that there was one more thing I could do.
“Gav?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t leave again. Don’t kill him.”
It was a sacrifice. A trade. But then again, what was I sacrificing? My life was nothing here. It meant nothing. Until I died or escaped, I would be nothing. And until then, I could keep him from killing. That was the only place I could make meaning.
This is what I told myself. I rejected any attraction I had toward him, repudiated it. If I was to let him touch me, it would be for this reason only.
And yet, secretly, I knew that it was not the reason at all.
“Kat?”
He spoke my name. He had no right to speak my name like that, the sound tripping off of his tongue in a way that made my insides clench with desire. Desire and hate.
“Stay with me,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I don’t want you to kill again.”
“You’re a liar, kitten,” he said gently. “You lie to me. You lie to yourself.”
“Stay with me,” I said desperately. “A trade. Do whatever you want to me.”
He smiled. And the way he smiled made me feel as though I was already on the kitchen table, waiting for him to stab me through the heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gav
When I installed the locks on the door, she did not even look at me. Her nose was buried in her book, a thriller. Her eyes stayed glued in one place, though, and she did not turn the page once. I could sense her eyes tracking me in her peripheral vision.
An interesting fact - when you see something in the corner of your eye, everything is black and white. The light entering at such an extreme angle doesn’t hit the central cones and rods that show color. I wondered what shade of gray she saw in me. I turned to her and saw her eyes flit down the page.
“Tonight, what do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You said—”
“You can do anything you want to do to me. That’s the trade.”
Irritation scraped at my nerves.
“I’m giving you a chance to make it easier on yourself, kitten.”
“I don’t want it to be easier.”
“You like it rough?” I stood at the foot of the bed. “No, don’t answer. I’ll just do whatever I think you’ll like.”
She didn’t say a word.
I came over next to her on the bed and lay beside her. As I slid my hand over her chest, her breath caught in her throat. I measured her heartbeat. It was slow, steady.
I nuzzled my face into her hair and pressed my mouth against her neck. Her heart jumped under my hand.
“How do you like the book?”
She whimpered.
I licked the soft spot at the end of her jawline, sucked softly at the skin there. Then harder.
“Oh!”