Page 31 of Torched Spades
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.
I know better than to indulge him, but morbid curiosity gets the better of me. Twisting around, my gaze lands, once again, on the same damn silver-framed photo sitting on the corner of my desk.
Stiffening, I bite the inside of my cheek, ignoring the coppery taste coating my tongue as I turn back to face him. “My personal life is none of your business.”
“I might believe that if you weren’t so invested in mine.”
“It’s my job.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Doc. Maybe eventually, you’ll believe it.”
His words are a punch in the stomach. I don’t want the man in that picture and Johnny Malone occupying the same space inside my head.
Or any space, for that matter.
I sigh. “I’m doing my best to help your situation, but you can’t keep using diversion tactics to avoid having an honest discussion.”
“My situation,” he repeats with a sneer. “You mean the fact that I’m an ex-firefighter who got off on the dangers of his job? Or that I’m a convict who prefers to jerk and come rather than serve and protect?” He rises to his feet, and I can’t help but shrink back in my chair as he rounds the coffee table and closes in. “Let’s call a spade a spade, Dr. Brennan. I breathe smoke, feel the lick of flames on my skin, and get rock hard. So don’t paint me like some fucking shiny hero with a kink in his cape.”
I prefer hero-laced devil.
“That sounds more like an imageyou’reprojecting. Wishful thinking, perhaps?”
His dark, degenerate laugh steals my breath moments before that same invisible chokehold grabs me by the throat. “Let’s get one thing straight, Doc… You can slap as many bullshit labels on me as you want, but they’re just decorations. Underneath, I’m still the same man who defiles your perfect, uniform little world.”
“I’m not sure what you’re implying, but I’m not ‘slapping’ anything on you, Mr. Malone. Labels are nothing more than ideological bumper stickers. I prefer a more diagnostic approach.”
He leans closer, clarity flickering in his darkened stare. “And does this ‘diagnostic approach’ of yours usually include the words atone, forgive, sin, orpenance?”
Jesus, he swings from volatile to condescending faster than a wrecking ball. “Isn’t that what all this is about?” I ask, motioning between us, “penance gained by paying a debt to society.”
The temperature in the room plummets.
“Penance is a lie people tell themselves to justify the fucked-up shit they do,” he says coldly. “Sins aren’t a wrong to be forgiven. They’re an irreversible stain on the soul. One you can ever outrun.”
“Cynical and dramatic. You’re an endless well of surprises today.”
He pins me to my chair with those huge, calloused hands. “You demand honesty from me, but what about you, Dr. Brennan? Where’syourtruth?”
I suck in a sharp breath. I don’t like having that word flung back at me, and considering the way Johnny is staring at me, he knows it. Truth is a road to self-discovery I walk with my patients, not because of them.
Time to regroup.
Rounding my lips, I slowly exhale. “I think—”
“That’s quite the pedestal you’ve built for yourself, Doc,” he says icily. “It must have been one hell of a fall when you realized that, despite my embodying everything you abhor, you can’t stop thinking about me.” He tips his face inches from mine, a low growl echoing in his throat. “To know that when you slide your hand between your legs at night, there’s only one name you call out, and it’s not Mister.Fucking. Malone.”
There’s no way he could know that.
The fragile hold on my confidence snaps, and the invisible chokehold returns. Only this time it’s stealing airanddignity.
He leans closer. “Say it.”
Johnny.
Say it, my body begs me, and when his palm cups my cheek, I almost cave. Then I remember the picture on my desk. A stark reminder that men are manipulative cowards.
So, I turn my chin. “I don’t date patients, Mr. Malone, especially firemen.”
