Page 97 of Locke

The anger continued to burn through her, and then she was growling. Standing up, she swiped at the desk. “I hate you!” she said to him. “I fucking hate you!”

His smile spread. “I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes.”

She gripped her hair for a moment and tugged, an angry sound erupting from her throat. She stomped around, slipping once along the puddle of blood, and then she let out a horrified scream when she realized it was beneath her shoe. The rage was like a black rainbow, all darkness and slime emitting out of her. Such raw emotions, Locke stepped closer, like he might feel it more. If only he could touch her. Swallow her screams. Pierce her with his rage. What might she do when she saw him bare his rotted soul to her?

Because the fucking? That was just surface deep. He hadn’t unleashed his true form to her. He had hardly released it to himself. He was terrified of what might transpire if he truly let his walls down, but he wanted to do it as she raged and cursed and glared at him with loathing. She tried so hard to disguise her lust for him, to pretend it wasn’t real, that they were not the same.

But they were.

“My roommate is done with me,” she began to monologue as the situation suddenly hit her. Locke stood by, drinking in her expressions, her voice, the madness oozing from her. It was like a hit of a drug—it sent his endorphins soaring. “Derek fired me because you showed up like the fucking Reaper, and you know what he was most pissy about? Me. Because he didn’t know my life story. And then I get fired when you pretty much abducted that little boy—”

“You keep presuming I had something to do with it—”

“Of course you did—”

“He was perfectly safe in the end.”

“I still lost my job,” she growled, like he was missing the point. “And now this.”

He gave her a dry look. “Are you really upset about this?” he asked pointedly, gesturing to the insane fucking image they were forced to carry the rest of their lives. “He dressed as a clown to work.”

“He didn’t deserve to die from it.”

“He didn’t die from it. He died because he made you a fucking offer.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t when he attacked me?”

He ground his teeth. “You’re not listening. His death was sealed when he wanted to fuck you in his seedy basement under his wife’s fucking nose. This—him bending you over and practically laying over top of you? That was the fucking clincher, lioness.”

“I slammed my foot on his shoe.”

“What the fuck is your point?”

“I could have gotten away.”

“Don’t be naïve. Another fucking minute and you’d have melded into that creep’s costume.”

She didn’t answer. Smart girl. He didn’t want to talk about it, anyway. He was too wound up by the sick prick. He was going to set this office on fire. He was going to burn his businesses to the ground, deplete his resources, make sure his family had none of his sick, petty money to live off. He wanted his name ruined, his reputation buried and forgotten. He wanted his great grandkids counting pennies wondering how Great Grandad Dino lost it all.

Motherfucker.

Kali continued to pace, and then after several minutes, she stopped and stared defeatedly out the window. She seemed to be over her dramatics. The situation wasn’t that unbearable for her. She thought she lost everything, but Locke would never actually leave her suffering.

“It’s time,” he declared just then.

She turned around to look at him, her dark eyes fucking with his head. He had to look away. She could disarm him sometimes. Make him confused why he was doing this. Why couldn’t he have just courted her from the start? He could have wooed her with his charm and huge dick.

But that wasn’t what he wanted, and it wasn’t what she needed.

He didn’t want to pretend to be a certain way and then show her his true self. And she needed to be stripped of those fucking performances she played like it was second nature to her. He wanted her true self, uncensored, every ugly thrown at him.

“You’re going to run,” he explained to her, staring at her mouth this time as it pursed. “I’m going to chase you.”

“Run where?”

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