THREE
The faint hues of daylight creep on the horizon as I sit huddled in the one armchair Terry and I own, watching Dallas as he talks on his phone. His right leg is kicked up, rested on the opposite knee, and his arm lies slung over the back of the dining chair that he took as his own.
He’s cool, calm, and collected—everything I’m not.
“I’ve got a few things I need to tie up from last night, but I’ll be home this afternoon.” His dark eyes hold mine captive. “Yeah. Love you too.”
What the fuck?
“Who was that?” I ask as he disconnects.
A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, his gaze focused on the phone in his hand. “Jealous?”
“Hardly.” I huff out a breath that lifts the hair from my face and stare out at the dawn.
“Then it doesn’t matter.” He rises, stretching both arms over his head and exposing the flat, tanned flesh at his hips.
Daylight brings clarity, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.
“Weather app says it’s supposed to be 96 out today, so unless you’ve got an iron stomach, we better get lover-boy out of the trunk.”
“We?” I assumed after the way he dressed me down last night he’d take what he wanted and then leave me here to vanish without a trace.
“Yeah. We.” His eyes narrow, slight lines appearing at the sides. One of which pulls at the scar over his jaw. “He’s your boyfriend.”
“Was,” I correct, stretching my legs out. “Not that you’d care.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.” He purposefully withheld any details about the person he spoke with to fuck with my head—it worked. I want to know if the caller was a girlfriend or a wife like I need my next breath.
And after having my windpipe cut off twice last night, that’s pretty bad.
“What’s the plan?” I ask as I head for the kitchenette.
“Told you—we burn him.”
“Have access to a human-sized incinerator, do you?” I pull a granola bar from the small stash of dry food in the pantry and turn to find him smiling.
“No. But I have access to a mortician.”
My fingers still on the wrapper. “You want to let somebody else know what you did?”
“Did you forget that I said I do this all the time?” He folds his arms, watching me carefully.
I stick the bar between my lips and bite. His tongue peeks out, wetting his own as I chew.
“You want one?” I ask before taking my next bite.
“I’m not hungry,” he growls.
Could have fooled me. “Do I need to wear anything specific today? Sturdy shoes for the long hike to hide the ashes?” I sass. Not that I have any choice other than what I have on.
“You’re more than fine how you are.”
I shrink a little as Dallas prowls forward, my eyes fixed on his hands, waiting, pacing my breaths … He reaches between us and snags the front of my T-shirt to haul me closer.
“Did you realize I left marks on your neck last night?” he asks with a strange sort of admiration.
My skin chills at his touch as he lazily drags his fingertips across my throat. “Did you?”
“Perfectly formed.” His pupils darken as I sidestep out of his hold, leaving the trash in my hand on the counter as I make a quick exit.
The granola bar turns in my stomach as I step through to the bathroom and check out my reflection in the cloudy mirror. Fuck. Not only is my forehead bruised on the side I hurt, but he’s right: there are undeniable fingerprints wrapped either side of my jugular.
I’m still zeroed in on the reddish-purple hues that adorn my neck when Dallas shadows me, his hand sliding into place to replicate where it was to leave the marks last night. Only this time he doesn’t grip my throat, he merely leaves his palm hovering over my flesh, teasing, taunting.
“Want to stab me now?” he whispers, dragging out the last word as though to make light of the situation.
There’s nothing funny about the fact I’ve let a ticking time bomb into my life. Or the fact I still don’t want him to leave me on my own.
“How can I when you know I left the knife in the car last night?” Little does he know there’s another still in the top drawer of the kitchenette.
“Thinking how you’re going to get your hands on this?” He reaches around me and gently sets the exact knife I had in mind onto the basin. “There it is, April. Sharp—” He drags his fingertip along the flat side of the blade. “—and lethal in the right hands.”
Game on. I reach for the weapon, yet gasp as the hand around my throat tightens. The surge of pain steals my focus, my desperate fingers missing the target as the edges of my vision blur.
“I don’t think your hands are the right ones, though, are they?” The cool steel presses against my cheek, and all I can do is stare at the pathetic excuse for a woman looking back at me as I come around. “Look after me,” Dallas murmurs as he watches me in the mirror, “and I’ll look after you. Hurt me, and I’ll make you wish you were already dead.”
I nod in his hold, wincing at the ache in my neck. “I understand.”
“Because …”
“You own me.”
“I will always own you.” He tilts the knife enough that it nicks my skin. I do my best to stay deathly still to save further injury. A spot of red blooms on my pale cheek and then slowly runs in a line to where his hand rests around my neck.
Dallas watches the beads path, his eyes midnight as he waits until the droplet is almost on top of his hand, and then strikes. A whimper falls from my lips as his hot tongue brands my skin. He licks a lazy line, clearing my cheek of any sign of the veiled threat.
This man shot the guy who made my life a living hell, and now he proves how easy I really had it.
Only, what worries me most, is as nervous as Dallas makes me, I’m not afraid.
I still don’t want him to leave.
I deserve to die. How could somebody be so twisted in the mind, so affected by the life they lived, that they cling to danger because of how familiar it feels rather than run from it?
“Have a shower, April,” he coos in my ear; his lips brush the shell. “You’ll feel better.”
I expect Dallas to leave, to shut the door with another warning, yet he doesn’t. To my horror, and equal parts my intrigue, he simply releases me from his hold and starts to undress. I watch in my periphery as he shirks his T-shirt, throwing it on my monstrous washing pile, and then sets to work on his jeans. His back is broad and defined, exactly what I assumed when I first saw his silhouette standing over me on the road. Yet the detailed artwork is unexpected. His tattoo depicts hell: classical demons and tortured souls that battle amongst rivers of fire. And overseeing it all, spread from shoulder to shoulder, is the devil himself.
Dallas turns slowly, dressed now in only his boxers as he frowns at what I assume to be my shocked expression. “Postcard from home,” he states plainly before reaching past me to turn the shower on.
The patter of water on my broken tiles fills the silence as Dallas and I stand toe-to-toe, unwavering. He huffs out an amused sigh, and then reaches for the hem of my T-shirt, slowly lifting the fabric over my head as I raise my arms on auto-pilot to assist him. He continues to undress me with the gentlest of hands—nothing like the touch he used to bruise my flesh. All I can do is stare at the scripture that adorns his chest—The one who believes in me will live, even though they die—only I don’t think he’s talking about God.
I don’t think this man knows God at all.
“Why me?” I ask. “What is it about me that made you choose to stick around?”
He hesitates, bent at my feet as he guides my jeans free. “I have a body to get rid of. You’re collateral damage.”
“Bullshit,” I challenge. “You could have driven off when you saw I was okay. You could have killed me too. You had plenty of options.”
“Maybe I was out of bullets,” he snaps. “Consider that?” I frown as he stands again, his eyes hard and fixated on mine. “Maybe I did want to shoot you too, but you got lucky.”
I set my jaw and stare the asshole down; I don’t believe him. “Want to stab me then?” I ask, mocking his question.
My heart thunders in my chest, the running water a roar in my ears. What if he decides that using the knife on me would be a good idea? What if he reaches over right now and—
“Yes, but I’m not finished with you yet.”
His cold indifference leaves my skin covered with gooseflesh. What more could he want from me? Don’t be naïve, girl. His intentions are written in the glint of his eye. This man has a plan, and it involves my complete submission.
Why does that make me so curious?
“Get in the shower, April.” He reaches behind me and unclasps my bra, then guiding the straps off my shoulders so that it slides down my arms and falls to the floor.
My breath catches in my throat as he blatantly checks my assets out and hums his approval. Hungry eyes devour my flesh; curious hands cup my breasts.
A broken mind enjoys the attention.
I close my eyes and frown as his palms skim down to my panties. He hooks both thumbs into the waistband and shoves hard, unperturbed by my silence. I shimmy out of the ordinary pair and kick them aside. Dallas pushes his boxers to his feet and shucks them as well.
What am I doing?
I wished for a savior for years, somebody to show me the way, to guide me through the process of leaving Terry. I wished for a knight to ride in and rescue me. I wished for anybody but this murderer before me. And yet, I don’t feel as though I deserve any different.
My life has never been easy, and in no way has it ever been conventional. I ran away from an abusive family, right into the arms of an abusive man, not realizing that I subconsciously sought out what I knew because it was easier than dealing with the change to something else—to being someone else.
And here I am, starting the ride all over again. Only each time I get on, the stakes are higher, the risks more significant, the odds even more so against me.
If I survive this, then what next? How many more times can I do this before I step into something I can’t handle?
The question is, do I want to survive? What sweeter death than at the hands of a man as virile and consuming as Dallas? I can’t deny he got under my skin the moment he pulled the trigger.
“Are you with me?” Dallas holds out his hand, inviting me to join him.
I let my gaze fall the length of the man, taking in the dip of his muscles at his hips, the firm thighs and weapon he packs between. The guy is hung, which should come as no surprise given how cocky and self-assured he is.
I place my hand in his and let Dallas guide me into the tiny stall. There’s no way for the two of us to share the shower without our bodies staying connected in some way. He maneuvers me so that I tuck in his arms with the spray hot on my back.
It feels like heaven.
“Do you have a job?” he asks out of the blue as his hands start to massage my back and shoulders.
“Not right now.”
“Family?”
“Are you curious if I’ll be missed?” He’s softening the blow, buttering me up with his touch before he sticks the literal knife in and removes the complication from his day.
“I am,” he answers, “but not for the reasons you probably think.”
“Is that so?” I rest my head against his chest as he works his hands lower, releasing the tension from my lower back.
“I want to take you home like a stray animal, April. I want to keep you, feed you, and make you depend on me for survival.”
“But not love me?” Strays need love. I need love.
“I don’t know what love is,” he says quietly as he threads his fingers through the hair at the base of my skull. “But I could try, I guess.”
“Again,” I whisper, allowing my mind to twist this into some warped dream, some wicked fantasy. “Why me?”
“Why not?”
“Because you have somebody at home you love already,” I point out.
He tips my head back with his hold.
“You killed my boyfriend,” I continue.
His free hand runs a path over my chest; between my breasts and around my side to pull my hips flush against him.
“And I’m nothing but a possession,” I say. “Nothing but a conquest. Somebody who’s indebted to you. I’m nothing, Dallas. Nothing and no-one.”
The water runs from my hair into my eyes, forcing them closed. I concentrate on the rush of his breath as the hand in my hair flexes, the feel of his hard length pressed into my stomach. Seconds pass like hours, every twitch and flex of our bodies against each other a stab to the senses.
“You’re somebody,” he whispers, his mouth close to mine. “You’re something.”
His lips sweep over mine, soft and careful. The hesitation is so unlike the man I’ve known these past twelve-something hours that I will myself to keep my eyes closed. I refuse to open them and see the truth, reveal the lie.
His kiss intensifies, the hand in my hair roughly directing me out of the flow of water. I let him guide me so that my back rests against the side wall, relish the feel of his body pressed against mine as he puts the other hand under my thigh and hitches me higher, pinning me in place with his hips.
I’m doing this. He’s taking what he wants to be finished with me, and I’m okay with that.
I’m more lost than I ever knew.
“Tell me,” he grumbles between chaste kisses on my shoulder and neck. “Did he fuck you in the shower?”
“No,” I answer on a breathless whisper.
“Did he ever look at you and lose control?” He moves the hand from my hair to my chin, holding my head in place as he pierces me with those dark eyes. “Did he ever tell you how fuckable you look when you’ve given up on life?”
I shake my head, rolling it side-to-side on the shower wall. “No.”
“Who do you belong to now, April?”
“You,” I murmur, lost to the feel of his thick erection as he rocks his hips against me, the security of his arms as he holds me steady.
“Who did you always belong to?”
I frown, unsure if he means what I think he does.
“Me,” he snaps, clearly agitated that I failed to answer. “You’ve always been mine; I simply let that fucking cunt of a boyfriend you had borrow you for a while.” His eyes are pure darkness as he places his cheek against mine, whispering in my ear. “I needed him to ruin you so that you’d crave what I am.”
“What are you?” I ask, my head swimming with the mix of lust, nerves, and regret.
“I’m the fucking devil,” he says, shunting me higher up the wall to reposition his hips. “Loving me will destroy you, but I promise by the time we’re done today, you won’t care.”
“Care about what?” God, he’s crushing me, he’s pressed against me so tight.
“That I’ve stripped you of your soul. Stripped you of everything you are or might have been.”