Chapter Twenty
I need to escape.
Break a window. Chew through a wall. Fling myself dramatically off the roof. Something. Anything, absolutely anything, to escape this hovering, suffocating, well-meaning captivity before it shatters my sanity for good.
A horrendous, maddening itch thrums beneath my skin, as if a thousand frantic insects are racing wild, clawing and crawling over every inch of me.
Tomcat refuses to let me go anywhere alone. Anywhere. Sure, I get it. A hulking masked psycho jumped me in an alley and stabbed my thigh. Terrifying, yes. But I'm suffocating here.
I love Tomcat. I really do.
I adore how possessive and protective he is. Usually.
But I can’t even stroll down the street for a gulp of salty ocean air. Every outing, he corrals me into an enclosed vehicle like I’m made of glass. My bike? Completely off-limits.
So. Freaking. Rude.
Because of his ridiculous lockdown, I’ve made it my life’s mission to keep him completely on his toes.
Snow brought me a jumbo pack of googly eyes the other day, and she gleefully helped me stick them on literally anything I could think of.
His bike mirrors. The steel toes of his boots.
The back pockets of his favorite jeans. Those were my personal favorite because he walked around the house for a full hour before he noticed.
Even the sleek paint on his motorcycle tank.
Tomcat’s voice drops into this rough, dangerous growl when he barks my name, and it does wicked, wonderful things to my insides. He started this whole war when he wouldn’t even let me pee without a guard, so my antics are just natural retaliation.
Honestly, I think Barbie Girl by Aqua really captures his inner essence as a ringtone.
I’m sprawled across the couch, mashing buttons on a video game in a desperate attempt to numb the soul-crushing boredom, when his phone rings from the other room.
“Marigold!” Tomcat bellows from down the hall, his voice dripping with pure exasperation right before he snaps the line open.
Normally, the rough, gravelly rumble of his voice would instantly soothe my frayed nerves, but not today.
He’ll change the ringtone, of course, but I’ll just find a way to switch it right back.
He’s going to have to physically lock me out of his phone or let me out of this house before I stop.
Am I acting entirely childish? Probably.
But I don’t want to actually end up hurting him, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen if he can’t ease up and let me freaking breathe.
After being hunted down by every go-kart, spinning out on endless banana peels, and crashing into digital walls a million times, I fling the controller onto the cushion with a heavy, defeated sigh.
“I’m going to tan your little ass,” Tomcat growls, his massive frame filling the entryway as he steps into the living room.
“Sounds incredibly fun, and I’m losing my mind with boredom,” I whine, throwing my head back against the sofa. “Let’s do it right now. Have at it.”
He chuckles, a dark, rich sound that sends a shiver down my spine. “What a tempting fucking offer, Goldie. Unfortunately, Pope just called. Wants me at the clubhouse immediately.”
I fold my arms tight over my chest, pursing my lips into a hard line. “So go. I’m perfectly fine here.”
“That doesn’t work for me, baby. No sooner do I back my bike out of the driveway, you’ll be out that front door.”
I throw my hands up in the air, jumping up from the cushions so fast my injured leg gives a small twinge of protest. “Of course I will! I’m going stir-crazy, Axton!”
“Yeah, and at least you’re fucking safe!” he roars, the sheer volume of his voice bouncing off the walls.
I flinch, stumbling back as my chest tightens. I’m not used to having his explosive, lethal energy aimed at me. The shock burns away, replaced by a rising, furious heat.
Like, really angry.
Like 'who the hell does this motherfucker think he is' angry.
How dare he raise his voice at me?
With a vicious snarl, I close the distance between us, planting both of my palms flat against the middle of his chest and shoving him. It barely moves his massive frame, but it’s enough to let him know he needs to pay attention to me, and he needs to do it quickly.
“No. No. You don’t get to do that,” I hiss, my voice shaking with a toxic blend of rage and old, dark memories.
“I know you have a lot of that dominant alpha, macho-man MC bullshit running inside your veins, Axton, but you don’t get to use it on me.
Not like this. You don’t get to yell at me.
You don’t get to lock me in a cage. I won’t be locked in again.
I can't be,” I finish, my fiery rant suddenly crumbling into a desperate, fractured whisper.
“Fuck, baby.” His entire demeanor shifts in an instant.
The anger evaporates, replaced by a raw, immediate panic as he cups my face in his ginormous, warm palms. “Fuck. I’m so damn sorry.
I wasn’t thinking. I just want to keep you safe, Goldie.
I need to keep you alive.” He leans down, his weight grounding me as he rests his forehead firmly against mine.
“I fucked up and let you down. I don’t want to lock you up, little shadow. Just want to keep you breathing.”
“But that’s the thing, Axton,” I admit quietly, staring into the dark intensity of his eyes. “Right now, it doesn’t really feel like I am.”
A flash of genuine, stabbing pain fills his eyes at my admission. “The delivery we got yesterday completely fucked with my head, baby.”
“But the note just warned me away from you,” I argue, trying to bring logic into the chaos. “The guys believe it’s a crazy stalker or someone from your bachelor past. It makes perfect sense.”
He steps away from me, yanking his cap off his head and running his thick fingers through his dark hair before shoving it back on.
“Does it? Because something about those surveillance pictures doesn’t sit right with me.
They’re all photos of me, or of the two of us together.
It doesn’t feel like the work of some scorned woman.
If it were, wouldn’t the focus be entirely on destroying you?
Wouldn’t your eyes be scratched out of the prints or something? The math doesn’t add up, Goldie.”
I shake my head, my mind spinning into a dark, frantic loop. “What? No. When that man attacked me in the alley, he explicitly said they warned me away from you and I didn’t listen. If this is all aimed at you, why the hell would he attack me?”
“To tear a hole straight through me,” Tomcat says, his voice dropping into a chilling, hollow register. “To hurt us both and send a loud fucking message.”
“No. No,” I repeat, the word tasting like ash as I shake my head violently, backing away from him as if physical distance could somehow protect me from the horrific weight of his words.
“Nope. That’s not true. Because if it is.
.. if that’s the reality, then that means you are in lethal danger because of me. ”
I pace the living room in wild, frantic circles, adrenaline sparking through my veins until my skin feels electrified. “That’s it. We have to split up right now. I have to run. I’ll find a strict convent somewhere in the mountains. I’ll fake my death. Whatever we have to do to keep you safe.”
“Goldie, stop.”
I barrel right past his words, my manic tirade climbing higher as the terror of losing Tomcat clamps down on my chest and refuses to let go.
On my next frantic lap around the living room, Tomcat intercepts me. His large hands lock onto my waist, swinging my body around until I'm flushed hard against his chest. “Stop.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!” I growl, my claws digging into his t-shirt. “I can’t have you dead, Axton. Nope. Not an option. Because if you die, then I’m just going to have to follow you to the other side. Then I’ll have to kick your ass in the afterlife for leaving me. Then I’ll—”
Tomcat slams his mouth down on mine, ruthlessly swallowing the rest of my panicked words until they’re nothing but muffled, desperate whimpers against his lips.
Our tongues collide in a vicious, heavy battle, a toxic surge of adrenaline and possessive desperation taking over.
Neither of us can handle the mere thought of losing the other, and the realization hits our blood systems like pure fire.
“Shut. Up,” he growls against my mouth, pulling back just a fraction, his chest heaving against mine.
“No,” I snarl, fisting my hands into his shirt to violently drag him back down to me.
Then, a completely different battle ensues.
A frantic race of who can get the other naked the fastest. The living room instantly fills with the friction of denim, lustful groans, and heated, breathless sighs as our bodies become the exact, consuming distraction from reality that my frantic brain craves right now.
When we finally collapse, skin-to-skin on the hardwood, gasping for breath, his phone erupts with Barbie Girl’s high-pitched melody right beside my head, shattering the moment all over again.
I let out a breathless, post-coital giggle as Tomcat mutters a dark, worn-out, “Brat.” He sprawls motionless, tattooed arm over his eyes, utterly unconcerned with whoever is blowing up his phone.
I blindly pat the floor around me until my fingers brush the cool glass of the screen. By the time I pull it into view, the line has gone dead.
“You know, I’m thoroughly tired of looking at all those creepy, unwanted surveillance pictures of us together,” I murmur, turning on my side and blinking up at him as I open his camera app.
“The ones we have absolutely no control over. Will you take a good one with me? A real one that we actually choose to take?”
Tomcat lifts his arm just enough for me to see those intense, beautiful eyes of his tracking me. “Right now? Like this, Goldie?”
“Uh-huh. You’re pretty freaking hot when you're all naked, dangerous, and sweaty.”
He lets out a low rumble, wrapping his massive arm around my waist and pulling my back flush against his chest. Taking the phone from my hand, he drops a heavy, lingering kiss to the crown of my head and holds the lens over us while I beam a bright, genuine smile up at the camera.
Tomcat snaps a few different shots, the flash illuminating the dim room, before passing the phone back down to me so I can scroll through and pick my absolute favorite.
“Need to get dressed and move, baby,” he murmurs against my neck, his thumb caressing my hip. “Pope’s already going to be pissed that I’m running late.”
“Just let me find the most perfect one first,” I tell him, my thumb swiping across the glass.
I scroll lazily through the camera roll, admiring the way his dark tattoos look against my skin, not even noticing I’ve already swiped past our new photos.
I stumble onto a folder of what looks like club surveillance files.
My thumb freezes. The screen wobbles as a violent tremor overtakes my hand, and the room’s warmth vanishes into a cold, paralyzing void.
There’s something…
My breath catches, heart slamming to a halt as I pinch the screen, zooming in on the pixelated faces clustered by the dock. My vision tunnels, locking onto one unmistakable profile.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
The room whirls around me. It’s him.
The ghost is back, and he’s finally found me.