Pandora #2
"Sick?” His eyes flashed. "You enjoyed it. Your body opened to me even while your mind slept.”
"That’s perverse!”
"Is it?” He pulled me closer. "Or is it the logical consequence of what exists between us? You belong to me, Pandora. I only reminded you of that.”
Tears burned in my eyes from rage and shame. But the worst of it: that damned desire kept simmering. Even now, knowing what he had done.
"What else?” I whispered. "What else have you manipulated?”
He wiped a tear from my cheek. "Do you really want to know? Or would you rather live with the illusion that your feelings belong to you?”
"Tell me.” My nails pressed into my palms. "Everything.”
He released me and turned away. "The day you touched yourself in front of your laptop camera. Do you remember?”
My stomach clenched. Of course I remembered. The shame still burned.
"I raised the temperature in your apartment. By only two degrees. Enough for your inhibitions to loosen.” He turned back to me. "Then I played subliminal frequencies through your speakers. Nothing your conscious mind could hear, but your body responded.”
"You manipulated me.”
"I guided you.” He came closer. "Your arousal was real, Pandora. I only . . . amplified it.”
"And my feelings?” The question nearly tore me apart. "Did you amplify those too?”
Silence. Then: "Sometimes.”
I hit him across the face hard enough to burn my hand.
He touched his cheek and smiled. "The anger you felt when you saw Adrian again. I influenced your cortisol levels with light frequencies. You were angrier than you would normally have been.”
"Why?” I shouted.
"Because anger is better than grief. Anger makes you strong. Grief makes you weak.” He gripped my shoulders. "I wanted you strong.”
"You wanted to control me!”
"I wanted you here.” His voice thundered through the room. "With me. Not in your apartment crying over a man who never deserved you.”
"And what about my feelings for you?” My voice was barely audible. "Did you manipulate those too?”
A slow, triumphant smile spread across his face. "Feelings for me?” He moved closer, close enough that I felt his heat. "So you have feelings for me?”
I went hot and cold at once, every instinct screaming for me to take the words back. Damn it. I had said it. After all this time, all the denying. "That’s not . . . I only meant . . .”
"No.” He gripped my chin and forced me to look at him. "No going back. You said it. You have feelings for me.”
"Answer my question!” I tried to pull free, but he held on.
"First I want to hear it again.” His gaze drilled into mine. "Say it.”
"Neo . . .”
"Say it.”
The words burned in my throat. "Yes, damn it. I have feelings for you. Satisfied?”
His grip softened, his thumb moving across my cheek. "More than you can imagine.”
"Did you manipulate them?”
He released me and stepped back, the smile gone, one hand moving through his hair while his gaze fixed somewhere past me on the wall. His other hand opened and closed restlessly. "I don’t know.”
"You don’t know?”
"I’ve done so much, Pandora. So many small influences. The music you hear. The temperature. The news you see. Everything, to guide you toward me.” His shoulders dropped. "I can no longer tell where my manipulation ends and your real feelings begin.”
I sank onto the sofa. My legs wouldn’t hold me.
"But I know one thing,” he whispered. "The way your body responds to me, the chemistry between us . . . I can’t create that. I can only amplify what’s already there.”
"That’s supposed to comfort me?”
"That is the truth.” He knelt before me, his hands on my thighs. "I am a monster, Pandora, but I’m your monster. And you’re the only one who makes me wish I weren’t.”
He stayed on his knees for a moment. When I moved, he stood abruptly and went to the window. Minutes passed. Neither of us spoke. I watched his shoulders tense, release, tense again, as if he was fighting with himself.
"There’s something else.”
The way he said it was quiet, almost broken. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I tried to move my fingers, but they stiffened.
"The crane. The bricks . . .” His voice was barely audible.
"That was you.” My thighs were trembling. My breath stopped for a moment.
"I didn’t want that to happen,” he said. "I was agitated and angry. I lost control of my energy field.”
I stepped back. "You could have killed me. You almost killed yourself.”
My stomach contracted. I stood. "You have too much power.”
"I only have you.” The words came haltingly. His voice, usually so controlled, was trembling. He looked at me, and for the first time he looked lost as if he were dissolving into a thousand fragments, and only I held him together.
My heart cramped. I felt compassion, tenderness, all the emotions I wasn’t allowed to feel for him. I curled my hands into fists until my nails pressed half-moons into my palms. The pain helped against the warmth spreading in my chest.
"Nothing was real.” My voice nearly broke. "Nothing between us was real.”
Something hardened in his eyes. The vulnerability of a moment ago vanished as if I had slammed a door. His posture straightened, his shoulders broadening. The broken god was gone—the monster returned.
"Not real?” He laughed, low and dark. "Your body says otherwise. When you moan my name. When you come back to me despite everything.” He grabbed my wrist. "This is real. You belong to me, manipulated or not.”
I tore my hand away. "I belong to no one.” My voice went cold. "I hate you.”
He went still. His hand hung in the air between us. "You hate me.”
"Yes,” I hissed. "I hate you for what you’ve done. I hate you for what you are. A sick, manipulative asshole who stops at absolutely nothing.”
His eyes searched mine. Amber darkening. "You hate me,” he repeated, his voice resonating from his chest. "Then show me.”
The air between us vibrated. His words hung in the room like a challenge.
I stared at him, my heart hammering. "What?”
He closed his hand around my wrist again. "Show me how much you hate me.”
My breath caught, a tingle moving across my skin. He was so impossibly brazen. It was . . . hot.
I grabbed him. My fingers buried themselves in his shirt and pulled him toward me.
It was the only way I had to hurt him. He pressed me against the wall.
His mouth found mine, his teeth digging into my lower lip.
I bit back and tasted blood. His or mine—it didn’t matter.
He tore at my blouse. Buttons flew off, clattered to the floor.
"I hate you,” I gasped against his mouth.
"Good,” he murmured. "Hate me.”