Chapter 4 #2
The rock was currently in her bag, near the door. Her knife was in that bag, too. She’d shoved it in the bag before hurrying down the stairs.
Victor’s eyes were obsidian. Nearly a perfect match for the rock.
Nervous, her hands reached for the buttons on his shirt. The incorrectly matched buttons and holes. She began to undo the wrong buttons.
His hand flew out and stopped her, mid-button.
She sighed. A long, put upon sigh. “One minute, you’re telling me to take off my shirt.
Now you’re trying to stop me from properly buttoning up?
” She could feel the roughness on the tips of his fingers.
Calluses. “You need to make up your mind.” She should probably go downstairs and get the sweater she’d left behind.
Not like she wanted to lose that garment. It had been a lucky find.
“The scar on your stomach is new.”
“I think I left my sweater downstairs.”
“How the—”
“Fuck did I get the second scar?” she broke in, knowing those were the exact words he’d intended to utter.
Victor nodded.
Her lips pressed together. She had no answer for him.
Wasn’t that the entire reason she’d come to this monstrosity of a home?
Back to the people she instinctively feared?
Because she did not know how she’d gotten the seven-inch-long slash across her stomach.
Because she didn’t even know how she’d gotten the two-inch slash near her shoulder.
Because she didn’t know hardly anything at all when she thought of her past.
“Someone hurt you.” Victor’s voice had gone low and lethal.
A chill skated down her spine.
“Give me a name,” he continued in that same tone. The one that promised hell. Lots of carnage and pain. “And I’ll put him in the ground for you.”
She felt her eyes widen. Knew they had to be huge. But Victor Alexander had just casually offered to kill for her, and she was sure that was not the way things were normally done. Or, maybe, in this new, twisted world she’d entered, they were.
“Why so shocked?” His hand left hers. But only so it could rise. Cup her cheek. “You think because you walked out, left me insane for a year, that I’d ever let anyone hurt you?”
She’d left him insane?
“No one hurts you.” Flat. His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “Whether you’re mine or not, I’ll still annihilate anyone who dares to hurt you. And when someone makes you bleed? When someone puts a mark on your skin? The sonofabitch is going in the ground.”
Okay. That was utterly chilling. She should be terrified. She was, for the record. But she was also leaning toward him. Her lips had parted, and she might have just licked his thumb.
Why, oh, why had she just done that?
But she had.
And he’d stilled. And the darkness of his eyes seemed even more powerful. As if the obsidian would absolutely swallow her alive.
“Are you playing with me?” Victor asked her. Still in that lethal tone.
She had come to the Mage Mansion in order to play a very dangerous game with him—and with the others downstairs.
“That would be a dangerous game,” he warned her.
She knew it. Was fully aware of the risks. What she hadn’t been fully aware of, not until Victor touched her, was the way he made her feel. Need and desire surged through her. A heady, dangerous mix. She should not trust him. She should not trust anyone in the house. And yet…
The tip of her tongue touched his thumb once more.
He hissed out a breath. She thought he’d surge toward her. Kiss her. And then she could kiss him back this time. Fully. See what it felt like and if the desire would surge even hotter inside of her.
But he stepped back. Lots of steps back.
He whirled, turning away from her, and she rose slowly to her feet.
Uncertainty filled her. Quickly now, she finished undoing the mismatched buttoning job.
She put the small buttons in the correct holes.
His shirt fell past her thighs. Swallowed her.
But somehow, the shirt felt good. His masculine scent clung to the fabric and seemed to envelop her.
He didn’t speak. The silence stretched too far. She looked toward the window. The curtains were parted, and she could just make out the heavy fall of the snow beyond the window panes. By morning, everything would be covered in a mound of white softness.
She’d woken in snow once. Only it hadn’t been white. It had been red. Soaked by her blood.
“I will gladly take a DNA test,” she told Victor. Mostly because she had to say something to break the terrible silence that filled the room. And because she wanted the test. She’d like her own definitive proof. “But I am Melody Mage.”
Her gaze darted over his back. His bare back. She was highly conscious of his body. Powerful shoulders. Rippling muscles. He turned toward her.
She swallowed.
The man did not spend all of his time behind a desk. Oh, most assuredly, he did not. He had a big, broad chest. Sculpted muscles. Abs on top of abs. She should probably not be gaping. And, honestly, she’d done a stellar job of not gaping, until now.
But now…
Wow.
“You look at me like you’ve never seen me without my shirt before.”
Her eyes whipped up to catch his.
A furrow appeared between his brows. “But you have. Over and over again. Kinda have to see me that way, when I’m buried balls deep in you and fucking you.”
Her breath froze in her chest.
“Fucking you in an elevator. Against a wall. In that four-poster monstrosity you call a bed at your place.” His head cocked. “You’ve had my dick in your mouth, Melody.”
Oh, wow. Someone was being exceedingly blunt.
“I’ve made you come against my tongue more times than I can count.”
He could not be serious. Automatically, she shook her head.
“Okay, you got me.” A faint smirk curled his lips. “I’m lying.”
Her breath whooshed out.
“I have counted,” Victor revealed without breaking eye contact. “I know exactly how many times you’ve come against my mouth.”
Boom. Boom. Boom. Oh, that was just her heart. Pounding out of control by this development that she had never, ever expected.
He closed in on her. He’d turned away, seemingly regrouped, and now was coming in with an attack that had her totally off balance.
“The first time you came against my mouth, it was in my office. At Mage Industries.”
At the office? Heat singed her cheeks.
“You were arguing with me. Telling me what a total dick I was. I’d chased off your latest dumbass boyfriend.
Chad. Seriously, Chad? He was after your family’s money.
I got compromising photos. Chad was shown the door and you—you were so furious with me.
” He was back to standing directly in front of her.
“But something changed in the middle of our fight. Fury and lust. They can go hand in hand, can’t they?
One minute, you were about to slap me. Probably had that slap coming, by the way. ”
He'd probably had a slap coming? Good to know.
“I caught your hand. Pulled you close. Then in the next instant, your mouth was on mine. Mine on yours. Hell, I don’t know if I kissed you or if you kissed me. All I know was that I’d wanted your mouth on mine for too long, and I finally had you. I wasn’t letting you go.”
She didn’t have chill bumps. She was overheating.
“I fucked you right there. Shoved everything off my desk. Spread you out. Had you coming against my mouth. Then around my dick.”
Okay, this was…a lot. She swallowed. “I…see.”
He frowned at her, the faint lines deepening around his eyes. “I don’t think you do.” Then he reached out. His hands curled around her shoulders. “Call me a liar.”
Why? Was he?
“Or tell me that you remember the first time we fucked. Tell me that you remember what happened that very first time.”
She could not. Because she did not.
And the knowledge was there on his face. “You don’t know.”
She couldn’t even shake her head. She’d intended to bluff her way past everyone. But she couldn’t bluff past this. She’d never expected this.
“You don’t know if I fucked you on my desk. You don’t know if we were ever lovers at all.” He tugged her closer. “Because you don’t know me, do you?”
“I know you’re Victor Alexander.” She’d looked him up online. Studied him as best she could. Her research, after all. Not like she’d walked into this thing totally blind.
“Do you know me? Do you remember me?” His gaze searched hers, frantic. Desperate.
So she gave him the truth. “No.”
His grip tightened on her, almost bruising in its intensity.
“But if it makes you feel better…” Though she doubted it would. Melody confessed, “I don’t remember me, either.”
Victor shut the connecting door softly. Stood with his back against the wood even as his heart raced far too fast in his chest.
Fury and fear tangled inside of him. Fury—because he knew something bad had happened to Melody. He should have been able to protect her. He’d failed.
And fear because…
She’s still not safe.
He knew it. But this time, he would not let her down. She would not be hurt again. No matter what the hell he had to do, Melody would be safe.
He sucked in some deep breaths. They didn’t do a single thing to calm him. Hell, the only thing that had ever calmed him? Melody.
He edged away from the door. Victor pulled out his phone. Yeah, it was helluva late, but he didn’t care. He dialed his contact. Let the phone ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
“Ho, the fuck ho,” a grousing male voice answered. “Do you own a clock? If not, should I gift you one this holiday season?”
“Memphis.” A growl of the other man’s name. Memphis Camden. Former bounty hunter. All around asshole. Also, an Ice Breaker.
The Ice Breakers were in the news all the time these days. A cold-case solving group, they were able to solve mysteries that had stumped law enforcement for years. They brought justice to those long dead. They locked away murderers.
They found the missing.
He’d gotten the group to take on Melody’s case. In order to get them involved, he’d had to apply one hell of a lot of pressure on the Ice Breakers. The waiting list for their services was insane. As in, thousands of people wanted their help. Because they could produce actual results.
He’d waited too long already. So he’d done whatever was necessary to get their cooperation. They’d been helping him figure out who had taken Melody. I know she was taken. I know she didn’t just walk away from me and never look back.
“Victor,” Memphis sighed his name. “I get that you like weekly updates. Trust me, everybody on the team gets that fun fact about you, but I don’t have anything new to tell you so can’t this chat wait until tomorrow? Until a semi-reasonable hour?”
“She’s here. Melody is back.” The words rushed out.
Silence. Then, “Yeah, I was asleep. Curled up in bed with my lovely wife. So I’m gonna need you to say that again. Very, very slowly.”
“She’s here,” he repeated. “Melody. Is. Back.”
“Victor.” Softer this time. With a hint of sympathy.
“Have you been drinking? Because we’ve been over this.
I told you that, after this length of time, you have to be realistic.
Melody—hell, there’s been no contact in far too long.
You have to face the possibility—the very real possibility—that she is dead.
That she has been dead ever since the night she vanished. ”
Screw that shit. “The dead woman knocked on the front door tonight. She came home. Melody is back.”