One second.

Two seconds.

Three.

The two of us are having the most intense staring contest of my life, as though winning is nothing less than a matter of survival. An invisible rope harnesses his gaze to mine, preventing me from pulling away. His arms may not be boxing me in any longer, but with less than two feet of space between us, they may as well be. The heat radiating off his body coats my skin in a light sweat. I don’t want to be the first to look away, but I can’t take this.

Whatever this is.

I need distance between us. I need to be able to think. To breathe.

Just when I open my mouth to say something—anything—he turns away and adds a few more feet of space between us, running a hand through his wild hair before bringing it back down to brush over his face. His warmth on my skin fades with the distance, cooling me slightly, and a rush of oxygen bursts through my lungs. With his back still facing me, I can feel the tension coursing through his body, see the defined lines of his shoulders and back tightening. There’s so much turmoil boiling inside of him, I can’t help but wonder what’s racing through his mind right now.

I’m the first to speak. “How long have you been here? In my room?”

After a pause, he slowly turns. “Hours, possibly. I don’t know.” His cold, expressionless eyes are looking at me, his jaw hard. Whatever war was waging inside him when Bobby was here has been shoved down and locked away.

Hours. Hours of this man alone in my bedroom. Jesus.

“And you’re . . . stuck here?”

He pushes out a rigid breath, yet his tone is under remarkable control, calm and collected. Such a contrast from just a few short moments ago. “It would seem that way.”

“What are you going to do?”

The low, humorless chuckle that sounds from deep in his throat takes me by surprise. It doesn’t reach those steel eyes. “Lou, is it?”

I try to ignore the foreign, tugging sensation stirring in my chest at hearing my name on his lips for the first time. Somehow, it feels both intimate and threatening coming from him. “Yes.” I lift my chin, hoping I seem as sure of myself as he does himself. “That’s my name.”

“Where I’m from—it’s not like this place.” He inches toward me, but only slightly. Something about his movements feels reserved, like he’s holding back. Still, it’s enough to spike my heart rate again. “I don’t know the rules here.” He curses under his breath and swipes his hair back from his forehead. “I’ve never spent . . . time here. Not like this. This is all very new to me.”

“Where you’re from? Where is that, exactly?”

With eyes of black ice and a voice just as deadly, he answers, “You don’t really want to know.” After a beat he adds, “No one would.”

Something about the intensity rattling through his tone sends another chill over me. It’s laced with warning, and I find myself agreeing with him. He’s right; I don’t want to know.

“So you’re just going to stay here then?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.

“Does it look like I have a choice?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Are you always this easy to talk to?”

A second passes with him watching me closely, before he responds, “I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean? You don’t know how you usually talk to others?”

“I don’t talk to others.”

“Not even where you’re from?”

“Especially not where I’m from.”

My eyebrows lift. “Is that by choice? Or by circumstance?”

“Circumstance.”

Wow. Not a single person he can talk to? I hardly even notice when I take a step toward him, tilting my head to the side and softening my voice. “But . . . never?”

He tenses, almost like he’s not sure how to react. For a moment I wonder what made him more uncomfortable—me inching closer or the gentle way I asked the question. Eventually, he replies, gentling his own voice in return. “No. No one other than you.”

I’ve almost closed the gap between us now. He’s barely breathing, his chest completely still before me. I hardly know him, this man with soulless eyes, yet somehow, a piece of my heart aches for him. I feel it, pulling at my chest, twisting deep. I thought I knew what it meant to be lonely. How long has it been since he’s spoken to anyone but me? How much loneliness has he endured? My face falls, my own recent feelings of desolation so small in comparison.

I keep my gaze locked on his when I whisper, “I can’t even imagine.”

He doesn’t respond. With his imposing height, taut muscles, and stone-like stature, he is a solid wall. Impenetrable. And yet, I don’t miss the green shimmer that glints behind his eyes. It’s only there for a second, almost fleeting enough for me to think it’s a trick of the light. Except I’ve seen the color swirl there before, and there’s no way I could mistake such a vibrant emerald blaze.

What is that? I almost ask him, but I quickly recall the last time I mentioned it, the way he’d retreated immediately. I don’t know why, but right now, I don’t want him to retreat. I want to keep him talking to me. I want to glimpse that emerald fire again.

“Do you have a name?”

His eyes narrow just a fraction, as though he’s trying to comprehend why I’d ask such a question. Or perhaps it’s the question itself that has him confused.

“Something I can call you, other than Death?”

“You don’t need to be calling me anything.” His response is commanding, a crisp slice through the air, but it doesn’t deter me.

“But I do.” I don’t want to tell him why I do—that I find myself thinking of him so often I need something else to refer to him as. So instead I go with, “You know my name. It’s only fair that I know yours.”

He gives a slight, rigid shake of his head. “I have no name.”

My focus wanders from his eyes down to the smooth curves of his lips when he pulls them into a tight line. Realizing how dry my own lips suddenly feel, I lick them without a thought. When I shift my gaze back up, he’s honed in on my mouth. My stomach flutters before tightening at the intimacy of his stare, and it takes me a second to find my voice again. When I do, the shakiness betrays me. “I’m going to go get changed. Make yourself . . . comfortable . . . I guess.”

I don’t wait for a response. Turning my back to him floods me with an odd and confusing mixture of relief, loss, and caution. I swipe the clothes off my dresser and step inside the bathroom, closing the door without looking back.

Just breathe, I tell myself, grasping the counter’s ledge and inhaling slowly.

It’s not the first time I’ve spoken to him. Been alone with him. I’m a grown woman, and I’ve faced more than many others my age have. I can handle this.

I force my body to move, pulling my top over my head before unzipping my jeans, sliding them to the ground. The bathroom’s insulated cool air bounces off the tiles, skimming my bare skin. I’m all too aware of the fact I’m standing almost completely naked with nothing but a thin door separating me from him. I know he can’t see me, but that doesn’t prevent a cluster of tingles from chasing my spine. After slipping on the snug pair of pajama bottoms and the loose top, I grip the door handle, swallow hard, and twist.

He’s standing before the window, his broad back toward me as he gazes down at the brightened shops below. The deafening silence only betrays each creak of the wooden floors, not to mention the loud thumping of my heart, so I walk quietly toward the nightstand and retrieve the TV remote. I flick the power on, paying no attention to the channel, and soften the volume until it fades to a hum filling the background of my room.

“Can you show me?” I ask.

He whips his head around at the sound of my voice, as if I’ve just yanked him away from some serious train of thought. “Show you what?”

“What happens when you try to leave.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“So explain it to me.” I desperately want to understand how all of this works. How this is happening. I need to understand. “Please.”

A low breath escapes from his lips, and his jaw ticks. He’s hesitant. “What I can tell you,” he finally says, “is that there’s supposed to be a connection linking me to where I’m from. And right now, it’s gone.” He turns away, effectively ending the conversation.

I have more questions for him—so many questions. But it’s clear he won’t be answering them just yet. He needs space. Privacy. Time to work out whatever’s going on in his head.

After tugging the silver throw from the foot of my bed, I settle onto the rocking chair. Really I want my bed, but that’d probably be too weird. His presence may have temporarily distracted me from my aching bones and sore muscles, but now that he’s slunk away into his own private shell, the dull throbbing seems dead set on returning full force. Exhaustion consumes me. I groan as I adjust my position, crossing my ankles and draping the throw across myself.

His head shifts toward me at the sound, just enough to reveal the strong angle of his jaw, the straight line of his nose. His lashes cast downward. He doesn’t say anything, though, and turns back to the window after a moment.

Flicking through the channels is nothing more than a means of appearing occupied. I don’t want to reveal to him how much of my attention he really has, how my thoughts gravitate toward him like a magnet, even when I try to distract myself with other things.

The silence drones on, tick tick tick. Each second dragged out by the tall shadow he casts over my room, the heat emanating off of him, spilling into the air and filling every corner. Thump thump thump, my heart smacks against my chest. I’m not naïve, nor inexperienced. I may have only been fully intimate with one man in my life, but I’ve never been shy, not about my body. Not about my physical reactions to certain things. Certain men. As much as I wish it wasn’t the case, I know exactly why he sends shivers through my body, warm vibrations across every inch of my skin.

“Why are you hurting?”

My stomach pulls tight at the hum of his voice, like I’ve been caught. He can’t read your mind, Lou. The reminder helps my muscles unclench.

“What do you mean?”

He wheels around fully, so he’s facing me, and gestures toward my body. “You’re in pain. Why?”

“Oh.” I swear my relief is tangible. “Long day at work.” When his eyebrows draw together, two hard lines forming between them, I clarify, “Cleaning. A lot of scrubbing and kneeling. I’m fine, just still getting used to it.”

His lips purse, but he says nothing. The way he’s watching me, cautious yet almost fascinated, makes my throat thicken. I don’t think he even knows he’s lowered his guard enough to let me glimpse it, that look in his smoky, dark eyes.

I clear my throat. “You can sit down.” His gaze follows my nod toward the loveseat just a few feet away from me. When he doesn’t move, I add, “It’d make us both more comfortable.”

I watch as he crosses the room and lowers himself into the seat, taking a ragged breath and leaning forward so his forearms are resting on his knees. His large frame makes the loveseat look like it was made for a child’s doll.

I know I’m staring, but I can’t help it. I’m beginning to realize just how much of an enigma this man is. A walking contradiction.

Everything about him—from his appearance to his voice to his mannerisms—is powerful, strong, filled with confidence and a foreboding sense of danger. Dark, mysterious, and deadly, in a way that will leave you breathless and unsure of what’s to come. And yet, in moments like this, where it’s just him and me, there’s a vulnerability beneath it all that draws me to him like a moth to a flame. During the moments when there’s lingering silence between us, I hear the shakiness behind his otherwise strong voice. Feel the quivering of corded muscles whenever our bodies brush up against each other. See the uncertainty flash through his hard eyes whenever he finds me looking at him.

In his world, whatever world that is, he is Death. In control and wielding all the power, he knows exactly who he is. What he’s doing. What comes next. But here, in my bedroom, he’s just a man. A man with an undercurrent of innocence that’s at clashing odds with the rest of him.

His gaze, lowered toward the ground, slowly, leisurely drifts up until it slams into mine with the heavy force of steel against steel. The green is back, emerald flames dancing behind clouds of black and grey. And with just that single look, his head slightly dipped, I know . . . Here, right now, I’m the one with all the power.