Page 178 of Heart So Hollow

“Was that a joke?” I peer up at him, “Do you all talk about me?”

“I hate to break it to you, but it sounds like they were already doing that before I got here.” He tips my chin up with his index finger, “But it’s also the reason they stay out of this hallway now.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s my hallway,” he looks down at me intently, “and they all know it.”

Suddenly, it dawns on me why Colson was giving Nate a death stare that one day he walked me back to my office, and why Nate looked like a deer in the headlights of a speeding semi-truck.

“So, that’s why Nate believed me when I told him you’re batshit?”

Colson grins and lets his hand fall to his side, “You would know more than anyone.”

“I do want to know something else.” As long as I can’t move, I think he owes me something.

“Name it.”

I take a deep breath and gather my nerves, “Why do you have new scars?” And I don’t give him a chance to deny it, “I know you do, because I felt them.”

After a moment of consideration, Colson nods to my desk, “Lay back for me and I’ll tell you.”

I clench my jaw in irritation, “I thought you said you didn’t want to get me fired,” I mutter.

“I don’t. Why do you think I didn’t fix the cameras?” He leans into my ear, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. You just have to lay back and be quiet for me.”

His voice sends a shiver down my spine and I realize I’ve walked right into his trap. Maybe he is more similar to a house spider after all, weaving webs five steps ahead of everyone else and lying in wait for his prey. Except, instead of trying to escape, I’m just trying to ignore the fact that my thighs are becoming more soaked by the minute.

But curiosity is quickly overshadowing any sense of logic. I need to know. I need him to tell me I’m not imagining things, even if he is a fucking psycho. I peer at him skeptically and then glance over my shoulder. Minimalist is an understatement. My desk is sparse, devoid of clutter and much of anything else, which is why it’s nothing for Colson to clasp my wrist and gently lower me onto the desktop. He reaches back with both hands and rolls the chair up to sit down, out of my view. When I tilt my head to look, he’s sitting between my knees, surveying my scratched-up legs dangling from the edge of the desk.

“OK, tell me,” I say flatly.

Colson swivels from side to side a few times before his hands disappear beneath my skirt, sending a jolt down my entire body. I inhale sharply as he hooks his fingers over the waistband of my beige thong and tugs it past my ass, working it down my legs. I raise up on my elbows in time to see him pull it free of my feet and lean back in my chair, turning it over in his hands to examine it. And it is drenched.

He glances up at me with a shake of his head, “You still like keeping secrets from me, don’t you?” he smirks as he balls up my underwear and shoves them in his pocket.

Shit.

He rolls forward, spreading my legs again, and I watch with both excitement and horror as he pushes my skirt up to my navel to fully expose me. He pauses, gazing at me hungrily. Then, without a word, he tosses one leg over his shoulder and buries his face between my thighs. I collapse back onto the desk with a gasp, grasping at his hair as I tremble from head to toe. Then he grabs my other knee and wrenches it to the side, opening me wide before he starts tongue-fucking me.

“Baby…” he moans, pausing to leave slow, lingering kisses around my edges, “you taste even better than I remember.”

Soon, he moves higher, circling and sucking my clit until my hips start to move with the rhythm of his tongue. I stifle any sound that dares to escape, gritting my teeth as he devours me.

“Col…” a moan creaks out as the tension builds.

But as soon as he feels my body go rigid, he raises his head and lets the pleasure fade away. I jerk my head up in frustration, drawing a wicked smile from him. He rises from the chair and kicks it back against the cabinet, taking a wide stance between my knees.

“Sorry, you were going to ask me something,” he runs his hands up and down my thighs, dipping his thumbs into the creases of my hips.

I stare up at him, my chest heaving and my pussy aching, and swallow hard. With a long blink, I take a deep breath to compose myself. I’m still determined to make him answer me.

“Why do you have new scars?”

Colson hesitates for a few moments and then reaches behind his back and gives a sharp tug, drawing something from the back of his belt. When he brings his arm back around, there’s a large knife clutched in his fist. It’s a black handled fixed blade with black metal serrated on the bottom with a straight top. My breath catches when the cold blade touches my skin and he brushes the tip up my thigh, leaving white tracks in its path.

“My scars are a record of all the terrible things I can’t change,” he pauses at my hip and lifts the knife over my skirt, “reminders of moments of weakness not to be repeated.” He sweeps his other hand beneath the hem of my shirt and gently pushes it up to expose my stomach, continuing to trace white threads over my skin, “I failed to stop a lot of things that didn’t have to happen. But there was one night that I did.” He slides his hand further up the front of my torso, and with it, my shirt, “I haven’t made any new scars since then.”

When Colson arrives at my chest, he tucks his fingers beneath the underwire of my bra and pushes it up to expose my breasts. His eyes blaze as he tracks the knife’s razor tip up the curve of my skin and then pauses, letting it rise and fall with my breaths, “And I don’t think I’ll have to make any new ones ever again.”

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