Page 13 of Edge of Control

I had to control myself. My entire life swirled around being in control. So how had this man made me lose all of it? And out of all the men, it had to be the detective working on the case that was specifically set to hunt me down?

Thesubway station had a few others waiting for the train. None of them noticed me leaning against the steel column, hand stuffed in my pocket, holding down my stiffening cock. All I could think about was Jace. All I could focus on was his scent, the way he felt breaching me, stretching me, unloading his balls inside me.

I had to shake him somehow. I had to get home.

The train reached the station and came to a screeching halt. There was graffiti scrawled across the side, bright blue block letters turning from a blur to an actual script. I ignored it. There was a homeless man sprawled out across the seats by the back of the train. I took a seat across from him, then pulled out my phone and tried to distract myself from my spiraling thoughts, but all that did was make me think about the mistakes I had made tonight.

Fuck, fuck,fuck.

My chest started to tighten. Panic attacks weren’t a new thing for me. I’d suffered from them since I was a kid. My mother would need to stay awake with me until the sun came up because of how the fear would eat at me from the inside, always made worse by the monster who harmed me in the first place.

My own father. Flesh and blood. He’d made me suffer, over and over again.

The locked bathroom door, the drinking from the toilet to keep alive, the beatings, the yelling, the nights spent awake, worried that every little noise was him coming to my room to smack me again. I carried a lot of trauma, all of it poisoning me like an oil slick coating a previously serene oceanfront view. It was impossible to wash off. Thepanic became a part of my DNA, leaving me in a near constant state of dread.

He’d broken me, damaged me in a way that left my soul itself scarred, battered, bruised.

Therapy sessions never helped; anxiety medication did, especially when chased down with a shot or two of tequila. Currently, I had none of that at hand.

I watched the walls of the subway whiz past me. A drunken couple sat giggling to my left, completely unaware of who they sat only feet away from.

What a joke this life could be, no one aware of who they brushed past, of the stories they would never read, never know the ending to.

A complete joke.

The train halted to a stop. My panic attack didn’t. My breaths sliced into my lungs, sharp as knives. My palms were wet, clammy. My throat was tight. I stood and walked past the knocked-out homeless man, past the giggling couple. No one was aware of the fact that I had murdered someone this morning or that I was close to being discovered by the evening.

I lived on the penthouse floor of an apartment building in Midtown Manhattan. It was a bustling and central part of town. Fashion boutiques and bodegas abound. The apartment wasn’t large by anyone’s standard, but I had a small balcony, it allowed pets, and I had a beautiful view of Central Park. A privilege given to me from my lucrative day job: marketing director at a tech startup flooded with money. I had worked hard to attain my title and to afford something larger than a walk-in closet in thecity. I was proud of it. One of the few things in life I was proud of.

I walked into my building and into the elevator bay. The cleaners had just been here. It smelled like lemon and pine. It only made the tightening sensation in my chest worsen. I wanted to vomit. Tonight had been a mistake.

Fuuuuuck.

I took the elevator up to my floor.

“Oh, hey there, Theo.”

The friendly face appeared between the doors like a smiling ghost. It was Billie, my neighbor. He was an easygoing guy and fun to talk to, but I didn’t have it in me to make small talk.

“Hi, Billie. Sorry, I’m in a rush.”

“No problem. Maybe come by later for some wine. I’ve got a new bottle of chardonnay you might want to try.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Everything okay?” Billie asked as he swapped places with me in the elevator.

“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.”

He gave me a tense smile. I managed to volley one back to him. The elevator door closed, and I rushed to my apartment.

I fumbled for the keys in my pockets, the metal nearly slipping from my wet grip. I put it in the lock and turned. The door opened, and I stepped into my home.

Dark, full of shadows, and safe.

Once inside, I shut the door and slammed my fist into the bare white wall. My hand stung with the impact. The thin skin around my knuckles turned bright red. Iembraced the pain. It grounded me. Pain was good. It was real. Panic was not. Panic was the monster under the bed, eating from fear that was never founded.

Immediately, I was greeted by a purring comet of fur.

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