CHAPTER 14 - Deimos
The metal table groans as I pull my weight away from her briefly, and for a second, the loss of her heat feels like a physical wound. I watch her eyes. Wide, dark, and swimming in a cocktail of shock and hunger. She looks fragile sitting there among the dead, yet she’s never looked more alive.
"I’m going to disappear into this red light," I whisper against her ear, savoring the way her pulse jumps under my lips.
"If you want me... if you want to know what it feels like to finally be mine... you have to find me."
I press the scalpel into her palm, my thumb lingering over hers just long enough to feel the tremor in her hand. I want her mind racing as fast as her heart.
"No cameras. No speakers. Just your brilliant mind, and the bodies in the walls. Don’t make me wait too long."
I claim her mouth one last time. A bruising, desperate kiss that still tastes like my blood and her surrender, and then I simply let go.
I'm giving her the choice and freedom in making her own decision. I don't want to hurt her. And I want the first time for us to be her crawling to me of her own volition, not by force.
I step backward, my boots silent on the linoleum, melting into the crimson haze of the cooling units. But I don’t stay in the autopsy room. Instead, I slip through the side exit, the one with the faulty sensor I rewired.
Then I move through the darkened corridors of the facility like a shadow returning to its source. My pulse is still high, a rhythmic thrumming in my ears that matches the stinging cut on my neck. She actually drew blood. The thought makes a jagged smile pull at my lips.
I reach her office. The door is locked, but locks have never been more than a polite suggestion to me. I click it open and slip inside, closing it silently behind me.
The room smells like her. Strong coffee, old paper, and that faint, clinical scent of soap she can never quite wash off.
It’s my favorite place in this entire building.
I don't turn on the lights. I don't need them.
I sit in her chair, leaning back into the leather that still holds the ghost of her warmth.
I pick up a pen from her desk, rolling it between my fingers, imagining her out there right now, wandering between the rows of steel drawers in the red light. She’ll check the corners. She’ll check the lockers. And eventually, that analytical brain of hers will realize where I went.
She’ll come back here. To her sanctuary. To the one place she thinks she’s in control. I lean my head back and close my eyes, listening to the silence of the hallway, waiting for the sound of her frantic footsteps.
Come to me, Mali.
The phone is heavy in my hand, a window into the red-tinted world I just left behind.
On the screen, Madeline is a portrait of beautiful, desperate chaos.
She isn't the composed Dr. Emerson anymore. She’s half-undressed, her scrubs discarded somewhere near the table where I marked her, leaving her in nothing but the shirt and the white coat.
She looks small against the towering stainless steel of the cooling units.
Vulnerable, exposed, and utterly captivating.
I watch her arms wrap around herself, a futile attempt to shield her skin from the clinical chill of the morgue. She’s shivering, but it isn't just the cold. It’s the hunt.
She stops at a corner, her eyes darting upward. I see her gaze land directly on the camera lens. She’s checking them, searching for the tiny red indicator light, trying to see if I’m watching.
She’s smart. She knows the game hasn't ended; it has only changed shape. She looks ashamed, her cheeks flushed even in the infrared view, but she doesn't stop.
A low, dark chuckle vibrates in my chest.
She’s looking for me. Not out of fear, not to escape, but because she wants to find me. The realization is a drug, more potent than anything I’ve ever felt.
For a while now, I’ve been the one chasing, the one haunting her steps. But now, the roles have shifted. I’ve become her north star, and she is navigating the darkness just to get back to me.
I watch her fingers trail along the edge of a dissection table. The one where she tried to do her examination. She’s tracing my path, trying to guess where I vanished. Her movements are frantic, yet there’s a new fire in her eyes, a hunger that mirrors my own.
“That’s it, Mali,” I whisper to the empty office, my thumb tracing the curve of her hip on the glass screen.
“Keep looking. Realize that there is nowhere left to hide from what you feel.”
I lock the phone and set it face-down on her desk. I don’t need the screen anymore. I hear the distant, muffled chime of the elevator. Then, the rhythmic, echoing click of boots on the linoleum in the hallway.
She’s coming.
I can feel the sting on my neck pulsing in time with her footsteps. The door handle begins to turn slowly, tentatively. I don’t smile often, but as the door creaks open, a triumphant grin carves its way across my face.
The storm has finally come home. To me.
“Fast catch,” I praise, my voice a low vibration in the quiet office.
My gaze snaps immediately to her exposed body, to the place I bit just minutes ago. I lick my lower lip unconsciously. She closes the door behind her and turns to face me, silent, waiting for my next order.
“Get on all fours,” I command.
She furrows her eyebrows at me, a flicker of her old defiance, but it’s gone in a heartbeat. Slowly, her knees and hands touch the floor. My eyes remain locked on hers, pinning her down more effectively than my hands ever could.
“Crawl to me.”
I fix my posture, leaning forward to get a better view as my little storm crawls toward me like I’m her God. I let my elbows rest on my knees, head tilted slightly.
At the moment she reaches me, still on all fours, I unbuckle my belt. My pants are already so tight it hurts. She decided to find me. She chose to serve her own monster.
She stops as she changes her position, kneeling in front of me between my boots. I part my legs more, offering her the view she’s been craving. My hand brushes her cheek, my fingers trailing over the skin as my eyes bore into hers. Desperate. Wanting. Exactly what I need.
I grip her chin, forcing her head up until she has no choice but to meet my gaze. I want her to see the darkness she’s invited in. I want her to see that there is no doctor left in this room, only the man who broke her world and the woman who let him.
“Look at me, Mali,” I rasp, my thumb dragging across her lower lip, still stained with the ghost of my blood.
“I want you to remember this. Tomorrow, when you sit in this chair and write your reports, when you look at the bodies on those tables, you’re going to feel the ghost of this moment. You’re going to remember that in your own sanctuary, you knelt for the villain.”
Her breath is coming in ragged hitches, her eyes wide and dark with a hunger that matches the ache in my own gut. She doesn't pull away. She leans into my touch, a silent confession of how much she needs this destruction.
I lean back, the leather of the chair creaking under my weight, and my hand slides from her jaw to the back of her head. My fingers tangle in her hair, gripping just tight enough to make her gasp.
“You’ve been so vocal tonight,” I murmur, my voice dropping to a growl as I guide her head closer.
“I told you that your moans were the only thing I needed to hear. Now, show me. Use that mouth for something other than questions.”
I apply a firm pressure, guiding her toward the heat she’s been staring at.
“Take it,” I whisper, my heart thundering.
“Take all of me, and show me how much you wanted to find me.”
As she leans in, the first touch of her lips is like a lightning strike.
"Yes... just like that."
My head falls back against the headrest, my eyes snapping shut as a jagged groan is ripped from my throat. The sensation is overwhelming, a violent contrast to the cold, calculated world I usually inhabit.
I haven't slept with a woman in a long time.
Since I started working for Elite, no woman has occupied my mind.
But her. This is Madeline Emerson. The woman who tried to stab me, the woman who spends her days dissecting the damage I do, now willingly worshiping at my feet.
Others would probably be terrified of having a scalpel pointed at their throat.
I took it as a romantic gesture. And when she drew blood, it only made me crave her more.
The sheer power of it is intoxicating. Every time her hair brushes against my thighs, every time she hums in the back of her throat, it sends a fresh wave of fire through my veins.
My fingers tighten in her hair, not to push her away, but to anchor myself to reality. I am losing the control I pride myself on. She is taking it from me, inch by agonizing inch, and I’m letting her.
I look down, catching a glimpse of her kneeling there in the shadows of her own office. The sight of her, half-naked and completely focused on me is the most soul crushing thing I’ve ever destroyed.
I reach down, my thumb finding the pulse point under her jaw, feeling it race in a frantic, uneven rhythm. She isn't just following an order anymore; she’s starving for this.
"Look up at me, Mali. Don't you dare close your eyes. I want you to see exactly what you're doing to me,” a strained, broken growl leaves my throat.
I want to see the moment her pupils swallow the amber. I want to feel the exact second she stops being the doctor and becomes the storm.
My muscles are coiled tight, my body screaming for release, but I hold on, savoring the torturous friction, the wet heat, and the absolute silence of the building that has no idea what is happening in its heart.
She's not just my pathologist anymore. She's my religion. And tonight, this office is our cathedral.