Chapter 10 #2
I leaned forward slightly, resting my hands on my knees. I let my voice drop lower, into a register that felt like a caress, intimate and dangerous.
"We won't touch you again, Tessa," I vowed, letting the words hang in the air, heavy and charged. "Unless you beg while you’re in your right mind."
The air in the room seemed to snap.
It wasn't a threat. It was a challenge. It was an acknowledgment of the reality she was trying to deny, that in the fever of the heat, she had begged. And we had answered.
Fresh color flooded her pale cheeks, a furious, humiliated blush that traveled all the way down to the neckline of her shirt. Her nostrils flared, scenting the sudden spike of Warm Bread and Spice that pushed off me in a heavy wave.
For a heartbeat, no one breathed. The tension was a pulled wire, humming between us.
Then her hand opened.
The brass lamp fell. It hit the carpet with a dull thud, rolling onto its side.
Tessa scrambled back, moving like a crab until she was pressed against the headboard, pulling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as if trying to hold herself together.
"Get out," she whispered. It wasn't a scream this time. It was a dismissal. "Get out of my room."
I nodded.
"Simon," I said, not looking away from her. "Door."
Simon peeled himself away from the window. He moved like a ghost, skirting the edge of the room, keeping his eyes on the floor, terrified to look at her. He slipped into the hallway.
"Anders," I said.
Anders hesitated. He looked at Tessa, his jaw working, likely cataloging a dozen liability clauses and damage control strategies.
Then he looked at the lamp on the floor, and back to me.
He straightened his ruined shirt, nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion, and retreated, his footsteps heavy as he left the room.
I was the last one.
I put my hands on the floor and pushed myself up. My joints protested, stiff from sleeping on the hardwood, but I ignored it. I stood to my full height, feeling the way the space shrank around me.
I looked at her one last time. She was watching me with eyes that were no longer terrified, but wary. Calculating. Burning.
"Lock the bolt, Tessa," I whispered.
I turned and walked out, closing the door behind me. I stood there for a moment and listened. The soft rustle of fabric greeted my ears followed by hurried footsteps.
Click.
Slide.
Thud.
The sound of the heavy deadbolt sliding home was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
I leaned my back against the wall next to the closed door, sliding down until my ass hit the hallway floor. I put my head in my hands, exhaling a breath that shook my entire frame.
"Jesus," Simon whispered from further down the hall. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the opposite wall, clutching his knees. He looked like he was vibrating apart. "Are we dead? Did we just kill our careers?"
"Our careers are fine," Anders said. He was pacing in the living room, the frantic energy of a caged tiger. "The author is… communicative. Hostile, but communicative."
"Communicative?" Simon let out a hysterical, jagged laugh. "She tried to kill us with a piece of mid-century modern decor, Anders. She hates us. She remembers everything."
"She remembers us stopping her heart from exploding," Anders argued, though his voice lacked its usual conviction. He ran a hand through his messy blond hair, destroying what was left of his composure. "Matherson, that was… risky. 'Unless you beg'? What the hell was that?"
I lifted my head from my hands. My blood was still humming, the scent of her fear and her underlying, spicy arousal stuck in my nose.
"It was the truth," I rumbled.
"It was a provocation," Anders corrected, stopping his pacing to glare at me. "You basically told the client that we're open for business if she decides to have another episode."
"No," I said, staring at the grain of the wood on the floor. "I told the woman that she has the power. If we touch her, it’s because she wants it. Not because she’s sick. Not because she’s weak. Because she chooses it."
"She hates us," Simon repeated, his voice sounding wet.
He looked at his hands, the ink-stained fingers that had been inside her hours ago.
He rubbed them against his jeans, a furious, scrubbing motion.
"I used to draw her, Daniel. For years. I have sketchbooks full of her face. And now she looks at me like I’m a monster. "
"We are monsters to her, Si," I said gently. "We’re the ghosts of the worst day of her life."
"So how do we fix it?" Anders asked. He pulled his phone out, habitually checking for a signal that wasn't there. He cursed and shoved it back into his pocket. "We’re trapped here for forty-eight hours minimum. With an unstable asset who has locked herself in the master suite."
"We wait," I said. "We feed her. We keep the world out."
I tilted my head to the side so my ear was almost against the wood of the door. I could hear movement on the other side. Soft footsteps. A pause. Then more footsteps.
She was pacing.
"And," I added, closing my eyes, "we let her realize that the monsters aren't here to hurt her this time."