Chapter 12 #2
“Figured I shouldn’t say anything, though, because if I did and if you’d come closer, I would have just grabbed you and hauled you into bed with me. My control was at its weakest then.” He rolled back his shoulders. “I’m better now. Got all the sleep I needed.”
She could use about twelve hours more.
His head cocked to the side. “Gonna stay on those stairs a bit longer or can I get you something to eat?”
Her stomach decided to growl hungrily because she truly could not remember the last thing she’d eaten. Had it been a bagel yesterday? “Food, please.” She continued her climb down the stairs. Slow, deliberate steps.
“Such polite manners.” He watched her with a faint grin on his lips, his dimples barely held in check. “Your mother must have taught you well—” Atlas stopped. His eyes closed briefly before reopening. “Fuck.”
She kept walking. Only stopped when she was on eye level with him.
“That was just a damn poor choice of words. A stupid joke.” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to suggest you were like her.”
No? Plenty of people had certainly made that suggestion over the years. “My mother taught me many things. Never doubt that. Never forget that.” It would be a dire mistake to do so. “What did your father teach you?”
His hand lifted, and he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered against her cheek. “He taught me how to break delicate things.” A pause. “But I won’t break you.”
“Atlas…” She ached for him. I’m not delicate.
But he stepped back. His hand fell. “I’ve got my personal chef waiting in the kitchen. Tell me whatever you want and it’s yours. Roland is exceptional.”
You. I want you. “Your own personal chef, huh?”
He shrugged. “Are you gonna tell me it’s too much to have a personal chef? Too over the top? Save yourself the effort. I can’t cook for shit. Roland is worth his weight in gold.”
“I was not going to say any of that.”
“No?”
“No. I was going to say…how about some eggs? Scrambled? I can make them myself, though. It’s not a big deal. No need to bother Roland.”
“You realize it’s close to five p.m.”
Yeah, she did. It was actually 4:30. She’d dressed quickly, but it had taken a bit to blow dry her hair. “I like breakfast for dinner. Um, maybe some toast, too, if that’s okay?” Then she shook her head. “It’s your house. I don’t want to be any trouble. Just—I’ll eat whatever you’re eating.”
“I had a steak an hour ago while you slept. That would have been right before I brought in the clothes for you. You looked peaceful, and you weren’t crying out again, so I didn’t wake you.”
Crying out…again? “Did I cry out before?” A careful question. She’d never let a lover stay with her during the night. Mostly because she was afraid that she might say the wrong thing in the middle of a nightmare.
His electric gaze pinned her. “I’m not dead, Lily. But it’s kind of you to worry about me. To have nightmares where you plead for me.”
Crap. She had zero memory of him being in her room. But she did remember begging in one of her nightmares. Begging for him to be alive. To stay with her.
He turned away. Paced back from the staircase. “The authorities will be here soon.”
Yes, right. He’d mentioned them. Lily climbed down the few remaining stairs and paused on the landing.
“They have more questions, and I’m sure that annoying prick ex of yours will be in charge of the interviews with us. But you won’t be talking to any cops or Feds until you’ve eaten. They can wait. Not like I want you fainting from hunger on me.”
Not like she wanted to faint from hunger on him, either.
Before she could say anything else, he headed down a hallway to the right and vanished.
Uncertain, she remained near the bottom of the stairs.
Was she supposed to follow him? Was he coming right back?
He’d probably gone to talk to his chef. She seriously didn’t need a chef for scrambled eggs.
She could take care of the eggs and toast in five minutes.
Her arms wrapped around her body as she began to stroll through his house.
The den waited nearby, so she entered the sprawling room.
The stained-glass windows in the den were gorgeous.
And marble was everywhere. She paused in front of a gigantic, white marble fireplace.
No soft touches, no photos. Stark artwork.
All abstract. One piece of art was a white canvas with hard, angry streaks of black and red savaged across its surface.
“What do you see in that one?” Atlas asked.
She’d almost jumped at his voice. He hadn’t made a sound as he returned to her. She breathed slowly, in and out, before querying, “Is this supposed to be an ink blot test? Rorschach?” Where it was really all about the individual and what was inside the person, not what was in the image?
“No test at all. Just me, being curious about you. What do you see, Lily?”
That was easy. “I see blood and death.” The red splattered across the canvas just like blood.
“Yeah, me, too.”
She turned toward him. “Maybe we are more alike than we realize.”
But he shook his head. No. And her heart seemed to sink.
“Lily Gallo,” Atlas said her name as if tasting it. Savoring it. “I will give you my secrets,” he promised. “I’ll let you slice open my skin and dig into my heart. I will let you leave me as bloody as that painting.”
“That’s…not exactly what I’m intending to do.” She wasn’t a killer intent on slicing him open.
“I’ll let you in, but you have to let me do the same with you. To you. You have to show me all of the secrets you’ve hidden so deeply. That’s what the strip show at the hospital was about, right? Us being equal? On even footing. One scar for another.”
Yes, it had been about pain for pain. Secret for secret. Scar for scar.
“I like that idea,” Atlas rumbled. “I want us to continue that way.”
She dipped her head. “Fine.”
“There will be a nondisclosure agreement you have to sign.” Casual. “It’s standard for people who are close to me.”
A nondisclosure agreement? “Uh, that goes against the whole purpose of my work.” She was trying to learn from the children of serial killers. To develop case files that could potentially help others out there.
“Yeah, well, too bad.”
Too bad? Her temper began to stir. “You could be ash right now if I hadn’t gotten us out of that cabin!”
“The way Benedict is ash?”
Savage attack. She sucked in a hard breath.
She’d had nightmares about Benedict, too.
In one of those hellish visions, she’d been crying over Atlas, begging him to live.
Only he’d transformed into Benedict in a flash.
A Benedict who burned right in front of her.
She blinked quickly, aware that sudden tears had filled her eyes.
Atlas’s jaw tightened. “Stop feeling guilty,” he ordered her as his watchful stare did not leave her face.
That stare hardened as he seemed to note the moisture gathering in her eyes.
“You told him to get out of that cabin. Several times. You told us all to leave. I listened to you. I will always listen to you. So you should listen to me, too. Benedict Swain chose that fate. He should have gotten his damn ass out of there. For some reason, you have yourself convinced he was a good guy. In truth, he was a pain in my ass. He made it clear on numerous occasions that he thought I was as fucked up as my father. He kept pushing into my business because he wanted to take me down.” Atlas raked a hand through his hair.
“You should look a bit harder at some of his previous cases. All the facts might not align the way you expect. He might not be what you expect.”
“What are you saying? That he was dirty? That he broke the law?”
“I’m saying take a look for yourself. Don’t feel guilty because he didn’t listen to you and get the hell out of there when he had the chance.”
“Too bad,” she snapped right back at him. She blinked again, aware that one of the tears had slid down her cheek. She swiped it away. “I do feel guilty. I can’t turn that emotion on and off. It just is.”
“You can’t turn any of your emotions on and off, can you? You just feel them all the time. Do they ever threaten to rip you apart?”
His words had just pierced through her. “Can you turn off your emotions?” Something that made her very, very curious.
“What emotions?” A shrug of his broad shoulders. “I typically don’t feel much at all. Isn’t that the hallmark of a psychopath?”
She inhaled.
He raised his hand, and his fingers brushed away another teardrop.
“He’s not worth your tears.” His hand pulled back.
“Here are some fun facts about me that you can add to your Atlas file. Or book. Or whatever the hell you want to call it. Fact one, I lack empathy. As a general rule, I tend to be exceptionally cold-hearted. Ask anyone who has done business with me. I’m a straight-up bastard.
I have no regrets in life. I don’t feel remorse. Guilt isn’t a companion I carry.”
“Four percent of the population counts as being, um, under the psychopathic umbrella.” Something she felt compelled to note. “Not all psychopaths are killers. Most actually make for great CEOs. Doctors. Lawyers.”
A soft chuckle. “Oh, it’s an umbrella, is it? Didn’t realize it was raining psychopaths. Good to know.”
“Don’t mock me, Atlas.”
He leaned toward her. His crisp scent teased her nose.
“Then don’t bullshit me. You think I’m a psychopath?
Call me on it. You think I’m a bastard? Call me on it.
You want to know me, the real me, then you say what you think.
You hold nothing back. I’m giving you my terms. We didn’t get to discuss them fully before, so we are doing it right now. Agree or we’re done.”
Well, well. “Awful moody for someone who claims not to feel very much. Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
His lips parted. His blue stare blazed. “I woke up fucking horny, and you weren’t there. I slipped into your room to drop off those packages, and you were curled up in the bed, sexy as hell, and all I wanted was to take you.”
Um…
“I didn’t. I walked away like a gentleman. When that is not who I am. I’m warning you. Agree or—”
“We’re done?” She rolled one shoulder. She would not be intimidated.
She’d faced off with far worse men, and she was calling his bluff.
“I don’t think we’re done, no matter what I say.
If I agree or don’t, it won’t change. You brought me into your home because you wanted me here.
And we both know a killer is still hunting in this town. ”
He growled.
Why on earth was the animalistic sound so sexy?
“You are definitely in a mood today. Maybe you’re just so used to masking your emotions that you don’t know what do when they batter at you so hard.
” She raised one hand and placed it against his chest. Over his heart.
“Is it racing too fast? Do you feel like you’re about to jump out of your skin?
” Because that was certainly how she felt.
She tended to feel that way when he was near.
“When you touch me, I want to fuck you.”
Ah, brutal honesty, huh?
But his head tilted as he studied her. “You want to fuck me, too.”
She did. “Our forty-eight hours aren’t up yet.”
“Are you counting down? Because I am.”
She was. And wondering if she’d make it through the full forty-eight. Did she even want to make it that long?
He took a step back.
Her hand fell.
Atlas rolled his shoulders. “Everything I say with you will be off the record. I’m not gonna wind up in one of your books or in one of your journal articles. You can learn about me. About my secrets. But that info is for you alone.”
Hardly a scientific benefit but…
Maybe this wasn’t just about science.
Maybe it had never been.
Cut to the chase. “Do you feel it?” she asked him, suddenly just needing to know and to hell with the consequences.
“Feel what?”
She was just going to tell him and put her soul bare before him. “It surges inside, pushing, pulsing. It grows in your weak moments. When you think about how very easy it would be to stop being good. To let go. To forget the rules that are in place.”
“Lily?”
“Do you feel it?” she asked him again. “Do you fight it every single day? Because I think you do. I think…” A ragged exhale. “I think you might be just like me—”
His mouth took hers. With a ravenous, consuming need.
She kissed him back with desperation. Because maybe…maybe she was tired of being alone in the dark. Maybe she was tired of fighting the dark.
Maybe it was time to let the darkness consume her. And if it did consume her, then maybe that was just the way it was meant to be—
“Mr. Bennett?” A man cleared his throat. “Her eggs and toast are ready.”
Dammit.
Atlas pulled back. “Hold the thought, my Lily.” Lust burned in his gaze. “Hold it. We shall revisit. Very, very soon.”
The words were a promise and perhaps a threat, too.