Page 50 of My Lovely Tragedy
I choke on my swallow of saliva. “That’s…”
Tobias holds his hand up, cutting me off with a small smile. “No need to comment on it. It’s simply the truth. But it is not why I wanted to care for you or wish to continue doing so. It’s far more simple—less to do with my long-since-healed childhood abandonment issues.” I snort. His lips twitch.
“I am bewitched by you. You have given me inspiration long since lost from the moment I laid my eyes on you in that snow-blinded night. Your obsidian wings, such a contrast to your angelic, ethereal beauty, is unlike any sight I’ve ever been bestowed.
“You are my muse, Brooklyn Crow. And I wish to keep you until the sand pools at the bottom of my hourglass.”
His garnet eyes are piercing, telling nothing but a truth that scares the fuck out of me.
Air, oxygen, breathing…what?
I can’t…
My palm slams against my sternum, the heel burrowing into the hollow between my pecs, but I don’t feel it. “Wh-what does that mean?” My voice trembles. For the first time since being in Tobias’s presence, I feel apprehension. Uncertainty.
I fucking hate it.
Tobias grips his neck the same way he always touches mine. I wince at the realization. “I suppose it means I cannot let you go, darling. I…” He glances up at the dark ceiling, seemingly gathering his thoughts, while mine are still stuck two miles back, flashers on.
“I need you here. With me. Just until the culmination.” His fingers brush over the top of his computer—an afterthought. My eyes bounce between his long, elegant fingers and back to his face. Over and over, so fast, I grow dizzy.
“Tobias… I don’t… That doesn’t sound…” I trip over my words, thoughts coming and going just as fast as the next replicates. Bouncing and disorienting.
His chest expands with another slow, even breath. In control.
Always so in control.
His eyes track over my body. My rigid muscles, fight or flight tingling in my fingertips. And it feelsso wrong.I don’t want to go—I don’t think I really have anywhere to go anymore. At least, nowhere that feels as comfortable as Tobias.
But this…
Something’s wrong.
“I would never hurt you, Brooklyn.” A promise. But at what cost?
“Tobias…” I repeat, flits of anxiety surging up my throat. It’s heavy as it lances my heart. It thunders, chugging and forceful.
Adrenaline.
I grit my teeth, fisting the blanket, hating the feeling. How uncomfortable and confusing this all is.
“Why would you say that?” Air whistles between my parted lips, cold against the fronts of my teeth. My tongue dries.
Tobias’s eyes never leave mine. The undivided, focused attention is too much after always being denied. “Because you are going to run, and I will have to catch you. But I promise I’ll be gentle. I…” His Adam’s apple rolls. He pushes his glasses back up his nose. “I cannot let you leave yet,” he repeats like that explains everything.
My brain lags, confused. Unable to absorb the information he’s spewing.
“I think… I need to go home now.” I hear my voice speaking the words, but I don’t remember saying them. I don’t remember moving from the couch or taking a step away from Tobias, his stoic persona now the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
But even amongst the fear, I see the man who took care of me. That force-fed me and bathed me. Who cooked for me and changed my clothes.
He peeled me back layer by layer until he exposed my raw, pulsating core for his own viewing pleasure.
And it’s that exposure that burns like liquid nitrogen as I yank the front door open and step out into the biting winter night, the snow nothing but pins and needles caressing my bare feet.
The sharp, dizzying cold steals the very breath from my lungs. I pant helplessly, my body working over the destruction currently taking residence at the forefront of my mind.
I jump off the steps into a drift that grazes my kneecaps. My skin stings—uncovered and exposed. My pants, the only article of clothing I put on earlier, are already soaked, weighing me down as I trudge through layers of snow and ice to the driveway, where Tobias’s car is alongside a truck with a snow blade on the front that I’ve never seen before.
