Page 81 of The Devil's Weakness

I gave it as long as I could before Ihadto go to her again. I can’t describe it. Now that I know her… I’ve seen her… touched and tasted her… my body craves to be near her more than it ever has before.

Around ten o’clock, it hits me that I still have the doorknob I purchased. I want to replace it for her, so she won’t be sleeping in an unlocked house tonight. I clean up in the garage. Then, I take a shower and pack my tools and the new doorknob in my truck. Parking in front of her unit, I grab my tools from the back, before knocking on her door. After a minute or two of waiting, I knock again while also trying to open the door.

I grab her doorknob and give it a gentle push, but it doesn’t move.

Did she fix it?

It can’t be locked, or else I wouldn’t be able to turn the knob. She must have something propped up against it. I turn it again and push a little harder. Whatever is behind the door gives a little. With one final push, the door opens, louder than I meant for it to. When I walk over the threshold into the darkened room, I hear a scream as something whooshes through the air before connecting with my shoulder.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Fuck!”I yell, dropping my tools on the floor. “Sasha! It’s just me!”

“Blade?”she screams.

The room illuminates, and I see her next to the door at the light switch, a metal bat in her hand. She’s in nothing other than a t-shirt and a mouth-watering pair of navy-blue panties. Her hair is a mess, her eyes are puffy, like she’s been crying for hours, and she’s choking up on the bat, like she wants to take another swing at me.

“Calm down, Babe Ruth!” I hold my hand out to stop her.

“You scared thefuckingshit out of me! Why are you here?”

“I came to replace your doorknob,” I explain, gesturing to my toolbox, laying on its side at my feet.

It’s next to a chair that I’m assuming she shoved underneath the doorknob to keep the door secured tonight.

“Youwhat?” she asks, looking at the tools scattered on her living room floor. “It’s eleven o’clock at night!”

“Your doorknob. I bought you a new one.”

She crinkles the skin between her eyes as if I just said something absurd. Dropping her arms, the end of the bat hits the floor with a clank.

“You’re unbelievable,” she says to me for the second time that day.

This time I don’t crack a joke, remembering how thrilled she was about that earlier. Although, this time, she doesn’t say it with vitriol on her tongue. Unless my ears are playing tricks on me, it almost sounds like she says it affectionately.

“You’ve been crying.” I cup her cheek in my hand and run my thumb over her water-logged skin.

I expect her to pull away from my touch, but the opposite happens instead. She leans into me and grips my hand in both of hers. She’s hurting, and I know I have a lot to do with that. Pulling her in for a hug is easy. She comes willingly, almost as though she was waiting for an invitation.

She sniffles a little, and I look down at her. Staring into her red-rimmed eyes, my heart aches.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispers so softly, I almost don’t hear it.

“So am I,” I answer. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just… trying to process the events of the past few days, now that I’ve had time to think about it all.”

“Oh.” It’s all I could think of to say.

“I’m sorry I hit you with a bat,” she apologizes after a minute. “I thought you were a burglar.”

“It’s okay,” I smile. “I’m just glad you’re so short; otherwise, you would have knocked my head right off my shoulders.”

She lets me go, and I immediately miss the closeness. Clutching her stomach, she pads over to the sofa and takes a seat.

“Are you sick?” If I wasn’t so worried about her, I don’t know if I would have noticed it over the sight of her ass cheeks peeking out of the bottom of her underwear.As usual, my cock jumps to attention.

“Kind of,” she answers.

---