“I rubbed one out.” I walk backward, splitting my attention between the kitchen and Alaric. “While sniffing them. Your boxers. Tell me this isn’t messed up. You can’t, right? Because it is. It’s far worse than being a vigilante.”
At that, a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. A fleeting, cold one.
“Little devil.”
Another sliver of hope claws up my chest.
Maybe he’s about to agree with me. Maybe he’s going to tell me he gets how someone like me can accept him forwho he is. That he understands now that nothing he could do would ever scare me off.
“Take my boxers. Fuck, take everything I own. My home. My goddamn bank account.” He flattens a hand over his chest. “If we’re a match and you ever needed it, I’d end my life and give you my heart. Strip me of my flesh and my skin, and I would love you still.”
I’m elated. I’m giddy.
For all of a second.
Beneath the beautiful words, I hear his message loud and clear.
He still looks at me as this perfect woman. This person who’ll struggle to come to terms with him being a killer.
Six feet separate us.
If I don’t do something fast, he’ll grab me.
He’ll silence me again.
So I drag my feet toward the counter where he keeps his knife block. I’ll die before I hurt him. But wielding one would buy me some time.
That’s all I need to get through to him. Five minutes without the gags.
“You have to understand that whatever you’ve done, I’ve done far worse.Youare nothing likeme.” Crap, that was the wrong thing to say, given how his teeth grind audibly. “No one but me has benefited from my stalking you. It was selfish. With you, on the other hand, it’s a win-win. Win-win-win, actually.”
“How so?” His hands flex at his sides. It looks for all the world like he’s preparing to strike. “Hmm?”
“One, bad people die.” I save myself from bumping into the kitchen island at the last minute. My breath hitches. “Two, your patients get a better doctor. Three, um—I’m no shrink, but it might help you work through your trauma. So, see? You’re one of the good ones. The best one.”
I’m almost at the counter. Alaric is three feet away. We stare each other down, his gaze hard, my pussy shamefully wet.
There’s something about being in danger without my life being at actual risk that?—
Focus!
Impossible. I can’t move, can’t look away as he whips off his T-shirt. His sculpted abdomen and that V-shaped muscle are put on display, making me weak at the knees.
“Come here,” he says.
Why?
My curiosity and missing him are powerful forces.
They’re the ones moving my feet forward.
One step.
Another.
“Good girl.” His hand is soft as he curls it around the back of my neck.
Then darkness flashes in his eyes.