Chapter Twenty-five
?
Am I falling in love with the one who could tear me apart…
Azalea
I will always keep you.
No matter what.
As I’m packing a bag to take with me all the way up to Malcolm’s apartment, and ebony bedroom, I can’t shake the words he whispered into my soul. Always. He’s always going to keep me.
It was as much a threat as it was a promise, but I might be growing used to the danger and reliant on the oath.
I let my bare fingers skim my lips before I pull on a pair of my gloves, grab my bag, and head down to the elevator. Using the key Malcolm left me with, I begin the long ride up to the top and blame the sudden dip in my stomach on the inertia.
I’m fine.
Everything’s fine.
I’ll be fine.
This is…
Just sharing a bed with my boss. With Malcolm. With…a clinically insane man who married me on a whim and began conducting bootleg therapy sessions with me a few weeks ago.
Heaving breath as the abyss opens for me, I wonder—mildly—which one of us is crazier.
“Dove.” Malcolm rises from his seat on the couch before the elevator.
The night sky fills the windows surrounding his living room, and it feels like I’m stepping into it when I walk forward.
Brilliant as a sun in the darkness of space, Malcolm smiles, motioning me toward the staircase.
“Come. You can get ready for bed in the master bathroom. I’ll use the one down the hall. ”
Mute, I nod, and he takes me upstairs to a door that distinctly isn’t the one I remember as his bedroom but leads to a massive bathroom all the same.
After showing me how to work the knobs in the shower, he draws near my ear and whispers, “Everything’s freshly cleaned as of a few hours ago.
I’ve been preparing since we parted ways earlier.
Let me know if you need anything. I love you. ”
My heart seizes, and I blank as he walks out, closing the door behind him.
Fingers lifting to the sensation of breath on my ear, I glance down toward my erratic heart.
He says he loves me all the time. Why are you throwing a fit about it now?
It hurts to swallow, but I manage to go through the motions of unpacking my bag, slipping out of my clothes, and stepping into the oil pit that is his slick, black shower.
I’ve made a lot of progress this week.
And I know Malcolm’s home is pristine.
I know it.
But I still guard myself against grazing anything in this bathroom, grateful that I brought my own white towel with me from home.
It takes three tries of getting in and out of the shower before I’m calm enough to pull on my pajamas, then it takes five tries to convince myself I’ve brushed my teeth well enough.
Staring in the mirror once I’m almost feeling correct in my body, I discover a horror set firmly outside my usual delusions.
My cotton white nightgown is…a bit on the cute side, isn’t it?
A bit frilly. A bit…
I turn, smoothing the skirt down to the middle of my thighs.
…short.
If I step out into his bedroom in this, is Malcolm going to assume I’m trying to seduce him?
Am I trying to seduce him?
This distinctly reminds me of those dating sims I played in an effort to learn the art of seduction, way back when, at the beginning of this grand saga. I gulp, chewing my cheek.
He is my husband, at least? Kinda? Legally, anyway. I don’t want anything to happen, but if it does, I’m mostly sensible, and he’s set up to provide for a family. I’d just…mentally…need to make it through a…filthy…terrifying…hospital-non-negotiable…pregnancy.
My breaths thin.
No.
No, don’t be stupid and don’t run away with your thoughts, Azalea.
Hospitals are negotiable. I could get a midwife. Have a home birth.
But…a home birth…is still birth. And it still ultimately produces a child. And children are the dirtiest things I can think of.
But also—I force a soft, broken laugh out of my body—why am I even lunging into pregnancy, anyway? Not every intimate cutscene renders one pregnant.
Intimate…
Cutscene…
My face explodes red, and I hug myself as panic sets in.
I’m not ready. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. I don’t want that. I do not ever, ever, ever want to be violated like that. It’s gross. It’s gross. It’s—
“Dove?” Malcolm knocks on a different door than the one he led me through earlier, and I swing my wide gaze to it, keenly aware that my mouth has gone dry. “My love, are you spiraling in there?” he asks.
I…might be.
My eyes burn, and I whisper, “I don’t want to seduce you.”
“Oh, darling.” He chuckles. “You’ll have a hard time avoiding it. Just your existence seduces me. May I come in?” A moment passes, then he says, “Actually, I don’t know why I bothered asking. I’m coming in.”
I unlatch my arms from around myself and pin my skirt to my rump as the door opens.
Cool and collected, Malcolm—garbed in white—rests a shoulder against the jamb. His eyes scan me, top to bottom, and his smile goes…gentle. “Pretty bird,” he murmurs. “I’m not going to touch you tonight. At all.”
“Huh?”
He backs up a step, presenting his room. Dark, dark, dark…bleached.
He’s redressed his bed in pure white, and I can’t breathe as I stare at it.
“I exaggerated earlier while you were enamored by me. I have no real intention of holding you tonight. We’re going to work up to that.
Bit by bit. Because trusting me, trusting that you’ll be okay, trusting reality over the lies your brain fixates on…
is going to take a little bit more time than we’ve given it.
Just because I’m forceful enough to rather heartlessly drag you forward on your healing journey doesn’t mean I’m going to create a situation that haunts you in all the wrong ways. ”
I blink, and a tear falls.
“That’s why we’re here, practicing in my room and my bed. Not at your place. If you need to run, you have your safe space still. Untouched by memories of me.”
Strength abandons my limbs, and my arms drop to my sides. “You… Wouldn’t you want memories of you to haunt me?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Only sometimes. Only when it’s not going to destroy you.
After all, what is my want compared to your need, dove?
” His smile strikes me through the chest and gut.
“Adjust your expectations. Tonight, we sleep. Together, but apart. If we wake up tangled in one another, that’s something else entirely, but, consciously, I’m not laying a finger on you, and if morning brings with it our unconscious consequences, we’re going to face them productively. ”
“Pro…ductive…ly?” I whisper.
“By reminding ourselves we’re alive even though we’d probably have been sleeping together like that for hours.
It’s proof to challenge your mind. That’s what we’ve been collecting for the past week, isn’t it?
Proof. Proof that challenges the beliefs that have been chaining you up for years. Practice saying no to the compulsions.”
I…
My body thumps. In beat with the heart in my ears. A shiver rocks me. Powerful, consuming, endless.
Cramming my lips together, I hold onto my tongue as I stare at Malcolm. Malcolm Swallow. The man I have hated. The man I have tried to murder. The only person in the world I think I…trust.
It could be a trap.
It could all be a trap.
He could want to build me up to this all-encompassing feeling then watch what happens when he shatters it…but…
“Don’t…” he murmurs, facing me again while I shove and fight and stuff whatever is taking over down, down, dow— “Don’t,” he repeats, firm. “Don’t stop those emotions. Let yourself feel them.”
If I do, I’m almost completely positive I will die.
“Azalea…” he says, smirk rising and tone taunting. “I believe I gave you a command, darling. Don’t resist me now.”
He’s just so…
I swallow—hard.
…insufferable.
Red blisters my skin, flushing in my cheeks, swarming my head, burning my ears. The unknown feelings race, overwhelming in their assertion.
Low, Malcolm swears, flexes his fingers, traps them in his pajama pant pockets. “That’s it. Good girl. Let the emotions take over.”
Hearing that is the last thing I need at the moment. Shakily, I support myself on the bathroom counter and try to scrub the heat off my face with the back of my quivering hand. “What…is going on?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you,” he lies, looking ceilingward.
His eyes linger up there for a moment, then slip back down to me.
“It’s just… Well.” Warmth touches him. “What was that you were telling me once about how you’re either nothing or too much?
Would that, by chance, refer to how you feel things?
” Evil, wicked, horrible, no good Malcolm dips his chin forward, regarding me with far too much confidence.
“What do you think you’re feeling right now as you’re very seriously about to join your husband in bed for the first time, realizing that he cares about you in a way that surpasses everything else? ”
I whimper.
“Say it for me. And this time, darling dove…you can mean it.”
“N-no.”
His brows lift. “No?”
“I’ll say it when I feel like it.” When it’s correct. When I’m not about to explode.
Laughing, he smiles and stalks toward me, one terrible step at a time. “Fair enough. That’s also what I do.” Not touching me, he leans near my ear. “Which is why I say it so often.”
Now he’s just being mean. But.
That’s Malcolm.
Cruel, cruel, rotten, horrible Malcolm.
Voice raw, I say, “How do you expect me to sleep like this? When you’re being like this?”
He mutters a curse. “You’re cute.”
“Not helping,” I hiss.
“Love you.”
My stomach flutters, dips, and dances. “Really not helping.” Pressing myself back against the counter, I look up at him and find whatever scraps of air I can as I scan his infuriatingly cocky expression and his white pj’s. “Why do I even… I mean, you’re… What?”
“This is actually the best thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”
“What in the world do I see in you?” I blurt.
“Nothing, I’m sure. It’s all probably the several years of careful psychological attacks, subliminal messaging, and determined conning.”
I blink. “Huh?”