Chapter Twenty-three
?
And if I die? So what.
Azalea
It was a trap. And I really should have known better than to think it wouldn’t be. Of course it was a trap. A stupid, stinky, rotten, horrible trap.
Twitching, I glare at Malcolm, regretting my decision to return to my usual seat in the center of my island.
Something about sitting on the leftmost side was beginning to wear on me, so I convinced myself that since there are only three stools at my bar counter, moving back to the center would still leave plenty of space between us.
For a few days, my assumption proved correct.
But now? One mere day into a fresh new week of meal-prepping for two, I am being attacked. Viciously.
“One bite,” Malcolm says, the monster. “Just one bite off my plate.” He lifts his hands away from the pesto I made yesterday afternoon. “I haven’t even touched it yet.”
“No.”
“Please?”
I angle myself and my food away from him, cemented in my central seat only because I already know that the other one feels bad and wrong. “If you’re trying to rehabilitate my germaphobia, can’t we start with bare hands on doorknobs, not…stuff…in my mouth?”
“You already barehand doorknobs in this environment, and I have a feeling you’d be kicking and screaming if I tried to get you to touch anything barehanded in my apartment.”
He’s right.
I would be.
Because his apartment is a black hole, and I don’t know what will happen if I don’t protect myself from it. Nevertheless, I turn to him, lift my chin, and say, “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’d touch you barehanded in your apartment.”
His brain shuts down, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Smiling, I settle in to enjoy my food. Off my plate. Which is completely different than his. Even though I prepared both. And he really hasn’t so much as laid a finger on his yet…
Maybe…
Maybe I shouldn’t actually be fighting him.
It’s not like I like being this way.
I should, honestly, try his methods. If he really is making every effort to help me, I shouldn’t protest. Doing my best, too, is reasonable.
And it’s not like he’s throwing me into the deep end here.
He’s been careful, cautious, and subtle, pressing against my rules to settle hairline fractures where shatters could be.
Leather skims my wrist while I’m muddling through my thoughts, and a chill pours down my spine as my fingers twitch. I drop my fork.
Crimson cheeked, Malcolm holds me steady in his iron grasp and uses his free hand to tug buttons of his midnight dress shirt down, baring the ink on his chest.
“Wha—” I squeak.
He presents the azalea and dove tattoo I’ve only seen once before, and I jolt my face away.
“You just said…” he murmurs, low, sultry.
“I didn’t mean—” I choke. “I was thinking like…hands or something.” Breath saws through my lungs when he doesn’t relent. Clearly deciding that now’s the time to toss me in the deep end, he fixes my full bare palm against the beating heat of him.
My fingers tremble.
His grip rises from my wrist to cover my hand, holding it steady against his bare, ink-stained chest. “One, two, three,” he whispers, then he frees me from the pressure of his leather grasp.
I do not move. I don’t dare.
An amused sound hums from him, and he says, “Four…five…six…seven.” Deep, he chuckles. “You like it there, darling dove?”
That snaps my fingers away. Jolting to my feet, I turn in an attempt to flee toward the kitchen sink.
Malcolm catches my wrist again. “No.”
My heart lurches, and I face him. “N…o?”
“No washing your hands. That’s the other half of the rehabilitation process you mentioned. It’s not just touching doorknobs. It’s resisting the urge to wash up immediately after.”
Tears prick in my eyes. “How long is immediately?”
“If I had to guess, it’s as long as I want it to be.” He reels me in, traps me in the space between his parted legs. “I’m rather addicted to this expression.”
My stomach knots. “Do you…only like me because I’m easy to hurt?”
“Perish the thought.” He swipes his glove beneath my eye, catches a tear, and draws the droplet to his lips.
“I’ll admit. I’m an unsavory personality, and I enjoy going too far in my teasing, but nothing elevates my soul like your smile.
” He circles an arm around my waist. “Two minutes,” he murmurs.
“Wait two minutes with me. Relax. And…if your brain is telling you you’re going to die…
tell it you’d like nothing better than to die in my arms.”
I shudder, and my body caves on itself, drawing nearer to him in the process. “How…will we know when two minutes are up?”
“Stove clock.”
I glance past the island at it.
His hold tightens. “I’ll watch. You…settle.”
Easier said than done.
Logically, I know I’m fine, but logic has seldom helped me where it’s concerned the things my brain convinces me I have to do to stay safe.
The memories that appear and haunt me when I break rules are unbearable.
They’re bleak, dark, and blurry. More a trepidatious sensation than anything I can grasp a hold of, or fight.
Why am I like this?
I don’t know why I’m like this.
No one else is like this.
And they’re all fine.
Malcolm’s fine.
I want to be fine, too.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I melt, letting my body fall into his and my face rest on his shoulder. Bare skin to dark fabric.
Bare skin. Dark fabric. Bare skin. Dark fabric.
Bare to dark.
Bare, bare, bare.
Dark, dark, dark.
Amid the repeating pound of words in my head, a horrible thought grips me:
What if I don’t die because of this?
What if he does?
The fear comes unbidden and violent and irrational.
I know it’s irrational. I know that I’ve tried to kill this man and failed.
Surely, I’m not going to kill him accidentally.
That wouldn’t just be stupid, it’d be a cruel joke.
And I know better than to think that the universe is an entity capable of performing such acts of comedy.
Still, it’s painful and scary, and I don’t know what to do.
So I just stand there. Choking on my worries. Drowning in the things I’ve never been able to escape.
“Two minutes are up,” Malcolm says, gently, and the stability of his arms vanishes.
Shaking, I cling. Then, as a tear soaks into his dark shirt, I whisper, “Two…more.”
His arms return, faithfully. And his quiet words bear neither mischief nor teasing. “All right, darling,” he whispers, adding, “I love you.”
Bit by bit, step by step, maybe…just maybe…this will work. I’ll overcome the panic. I’ll regain control of my own mind.
And maybe, just maybe, once I have, I’ll find myself on the cusp of believing he’s telling me the truth.