Chapter 10
Bandages bound thickly around her dainty wrists, separating metal and torn flesh, Ember watches me from her handcuffed position in my bed.
Walls painted a pale silver-grey, plush black carpet thick beneath my bare feet, I move across my space to the bedroom door, checking the locks for a third time.
Turning back towards the bed, Ember on her side, her body almost in the centre of the mattress where she rests her cheek atop the very edge of her pillow, facing my side of the bed. Bright blonde curls splaying over the black pillowcase, the contrast like night and day.
Much like her and I.
Sun and moon.
Heaven and Hell.
Angel and demon.
“Move over,” I tell her with a grunt, all without focussing on her face.
I can feel her eyes on me, but I pay her no attention. Stepping up beside the bed, I shove down my joggers, place my pistol atop the bedside table, and flick out the overhead light.
She sucks in a sharp breath as we’re plunged into pitch darkness, a hiss through her teeth that catches in the back of her throat. I toss the corner of the duvet back, ignoring her, grateful I can’t fucking see her with the blackout blinds and heavy curtains in place. I can’t sleep with light coming in.
It’s only when my back connects with the mattress, firm, thankfully, so I won’t feel her shift, my weight won’t roll her towards me. I want to be as far away from her as possible, at the same time, I don’t. Can’t.
Possessive.
Obsessed.
Yanking the covers over me, I grit my teeth, squeeze my eyes shut tight, listening to her beside me. Something I’ve often thought of in this bed, in the middle of the night, or middle of the day if I’ve worked all night, we run on weird hours in this crew. But regardless, I lie awake in here, the room pitch, and I imagine her warm pants of breath sluicing down the side of my throat, the soft skin of her hand against my chest.
It’s what I expect actually, having purposely bound her wrists to the headboard in just such a way that she is only able to lie on her right side, facing towards me. But there’s no breath against my skin, there’s no touch, there’s just… nothing.
“Ember,” It’s a command, the way her name snaps from my tongue.
Panic.
That’s what I feel, an icy chill of fear slashing me right to the bone.
I bolt up, grabbing her face in the dark, pinching her cheeks and breath rushes out of her mouth, a gasping, choking sound following.
I think of her heart.
‘I need my pills.’
Inside my chest, my own heart thunders like a circling storm.
“Emmy!”
Twisting back, one hand still gripping her face, I reach for my bedside table, slap my fingers against the lamp atop it. Instantly, she takes a breath, a soft orange glow warming the dark. I stare down at her face, pale cheeks pinched in the tight grip of my fingers, parting her lips, squishing her mouth. I release her like she burned me. Those big sapphire eyes watery and wide, flicked up on me.
Real fear sits inside my chest cavity, and I can’t speak, unable to say anything. Yet, my mouth opens and closes like I’m going to.
“I don’t like the dark,” she whispers, staring up at me with a slight flinch, as though she’ll be punished for it.
The look she gives me, all nerves and confession, I hate it, but I suppose, I understand it. I’m never not threatening her, am I?
I exhale heavily. Exhausted. I don’t, can’t, fucking sleep with the light on.
“Ember, if you shut your eyes, you’ll be in the dark anyway. You won’t even know the light’s off.”
I lick my lips, absently tracing a single finger along the shadowed curve of her jaw. She shudders, and I genuinely can’t tell if it’s with desire or disgust.
We’re walking a fine fucking line here, her and I.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” I frown as I say it, her big blue eyes on mine.
I protect you.
“I don’t-” she blinks, dropping her gaze, and I slip my finger beneath the hollow of her chin, tilting her head.
Elbow bent, forearm resting on the mattress, holding me up, I keep my touch light, even though sparks seem to fizz beneath my skin.
She was always meant to be mine.
I have wanted everything with this girl even as a little boy teaching her to ride a bike for the first time.
I looked at her, even then, like a prize I wanted to win.
But my ideas were warped, both then and now.
Now, I look at her like another man’s treasure I must steal to keep as my own.
“Pretty Girl,” I breathe, dipping my head down low, our lips brushing as I align my face with hers, flick my dark gaze between her bright eyes. “I’m going to keep you safe.” It’s the first time, I think, I mean it. “Even when you hate me, I will keep you safe.”
Because she will.
Hate me.
I don’t know how to be anything but this.
I am not who she thinks she knows.
No longer that gangly teenage boy with a soft spot for his best friend’s kid sister.
Something catches in my throat, the way she looks into my eyes with something more than just fear.
Like she can see me.
It. Is. Terrifying.
“Blaze,” she breathes, my name a desperate aching plea on her pretty pink mouth.
She licks her plump lips, lashes fluttering over the tops of her cheekbones. As I survey her face, the tiny light smattering of freckles, appearing darker beneath the shadows, decorating the bridge of her nose. My gaze snags on that scar again, beneath her left eye. It transports me back.
I think of the glass bottle shattering against the railing, the little pieces of it flying up, her eyes slamming closed as the shards sprayed us both, glinting in her blonde ringlets like diamonds. The man lunging at her, my hands against his-
“Blaze?”
Tiredness overwhelming me, I blink, a headache pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Pad of my thumb to the corner of her mouth, my fingers light against her cheek, I roll my gaze to study it. The way I touch her. Blood drenched, tattooed hands caressing clean, innocent skin. No pain with the touch. No malicious intent.
Why can’t I always be this way with her?
Why do I let my temper tear out of me?
Rage flits into my bloodstream like a slow, dripping poison, at myself, at her, at her father.
Biting down on my back molars, I grit my teeth again, breathing hard through my nose as my nostrils flare.
I want to kiss her. To bury myself inside of her. To never let her fucking go.
I am fucked up.
I have fucked up.
Abducting her.
Chaining her here.
To me.
She doesn’t understand.
Yet.
What any of this means.
“Blaze,” she says again, forcing my eyes to close of their own accord.
Blocking out the dimly lit room, her in my bed. Her breath puffs a little too quickly, blowing against my skin, my nipples pebbling like it’s purposeful, her attention.
“Blaze,” she hushes then, low. “Won’t you please look at me?”
The way she asks. So polite. So calm.
Did you ever think of me, the way I have so often obsessed over thoughts of you?
My eyes open, gaze tethered to hers in ways that make me tremble. But it’s not in my nature to submit to feelings like that, so instead, my grip on her face turns firmer, even as I try my hardest not to hurt her, she winces anyway. And it’s that flicker of fear again in her eyes that really kicks me in the fucking balls.
I don’t want you to be scared of me.
You never were before.
Where’s your fire gone?
Fight back, Pretty Girl.
Fight back.
“Ember-”
“What are you going to do when my parents put out a missing person’s report?” she asks quietly, interrupting me, cutting me off.
It takes me a long second to blink through the question, cutting through my own train of thought, so many tracks overlapping, it’s hard to make sure none of the trains crash.
“I’m not worried about that, Pretty Girl,” I tell her, lightening my hold on her face.
Pushing her hair back with the palm of my hand, letting it drop down, over her ear, to cup the side of her throat. She stares up at me, her hands pressed together like a prayer beneath her cheek, bandages and cuffs snapped securely around them.
“Why not?” she whispers, like we’re caught in a moment, tangled in it, neither one of us knowing how we got here.
I can hear her words in my head.
An echo.
‘I didn’t want you to get in trouble.’
“Because no one is looking for you,” I whisper it back like a depraved little lullaby, studying the perfect pout of her lips, watching as they part, the tip of my thumb sliding just inside her mouth. “No one is looking for you,” I repeat quietly. “No one is missing you.” The tip of her tongue is a hot, wet point as she rolls it slowly across the pad of my thumb. Her eyes never leaving my face, I command her, “Suck,” and she does. My thumb sliding all the way to the back of her tongue. “No one is going to find you, Pretty Girl, because no one is looking.” She sucks on the digit harder, her top teeth grazing over my skin, biting gently on the bone as I slip it from her lips.
“But, my parents-”
“Do not give one single fuck that you’re gone.”
It’s a cold snarl, the way I bite out the words. She misinterprets my meaning. Flinching at my sudden snapping temper. She thinks my anger is aimed at her.
She couldn’t be more wrong.
Ember blinks those big blue eyes up at me, her lips glistening with saliva, the taste of my skin on her tongue. I want to fuck her throat.
“They don’t care about you, Ember,” it’s plain, the words unfeeling, but tears spring to her eyes, glistening like sapphires.
Fuck, you’re so beautiful.
“You’re a liar,” she whispers, but she knows I’m not, even though we haven’t seen each other in years, she knows that’s something that would never change.
Shrugging, I slump back down onto my back, stare up at the ceiling, “Think what you like, Pretty Girl, but we’re done talking now.”
I shut my eyes, ignoring the lamp beside me, still switched on. I contemplate shutting it off for what feels like hours, when in reality, counting the very long seconds of her held breath, it’s not even half a minute.
When she speaks again, I am almost, almost asleep.
“I hate you,” she whispers.
It takes everything inside of me not to flinch.