Page 151 of Like Grim Death: Part One
He brings the knife up between us, still smiling, and this time, he’s gripping the weapon by the black handle.
I suck in a breath as he taps the sharp point to his left canine. “What are you doing?” I ask, shaking my head. “What the hell—”
“Look,” he says. He lowers the knife and leans in toward me. Again, I’m hit with his fresh scent, and the mint of his breath, but I blink, looking at the tooth he touched with the knife.
It looks… strange. Thinner than his other. I shift my gaze between the two, frowning, and abruptly, he pulls back.
Confused, I open my mouth to ask again what he’s talking about, but he beats me to it.
“Yourboyfrienddid that,” he says, mocking the word I used to describe Maverick. He flips the knife in his hand without looking, catching the handle as he smiles at me. “For fucking his sister.”
Brooklin.
His gaze drops over my body. “He might try to kill me,” he agrees, and I don’t know why I feel pleasure at those words, but I do.
Like maybe I don’t believe what I’m worth to Maverick, despite what he says. Maybe I think he just… feels stuck with me. I know he carries a lot of guilt over Ria, the girl in the basement. I’ve overheard him talking about her. I wonder if he ever wanted to marry her, just to save her. Maybe he blames me for not being able to do it.
“But I learned my lesson.”
I frown, dragging my gaze from the knife in his hand, back up to his dark eyes. “To not fuck his sister?” I think of Sid even as I know we’re discussing Brooklin. It’s what my brain does. Jump to the worst possible conclusion at any given moment.
Atlas reaches up with his free hand and adjusts his hat, for half a second exposing the soft curls of his blond hair.
“No,pretty girl.”He takes a step back, and I tense, my body going rigid. He bends his elbow, flexing his arm, the knife gripped tight in his hand. “To be worse than he is.”
I almost laugh, because there’s no way he could be worse. Even with that display with the knife, I want to tell him he could never be like Maverick, but I hear the insult in my words before I get them out, so I decide to say nothing.
But just as I reach for a subject change, his eyes lock on mine, and he says, “Duck,” just one second before he throws the knife.
Right at me.
I drop to the ground, my heart racing, not enough air in my lungs as my palms slap the floor, my knees banging against the tiles.
I hear the knife twang as it lodges into the cabinet at my back.
I can’t even lift my head. I’m barely breathing. That could have… that could have pierced my lung. My eyes. My brain.
The knife stops, everything seems to stop. Atlas doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. I can’t find words, and my eyes are squeezed closed, my palms clammy against the floor.
For the first time since I’ve been sneaking around behind Maverick’s back and coming here, tonight is when I feel real fear.
And after a long stretch of silence, it only increases when I hear the floor shift. Atlas coming closer.
I open my eyes, adrenaline slipping from my veins, exhaustion in its wake as my chest heaves.
I see the leather of his shoes.
Then he offers me his hand.
Panting, trying to catch my breath, I’m not thinking clearly, and I take it. In one swift motion, he pulls me to my feet, then wraps his arms around my waist. My palms crash against his chest because I’m off balance, unsteady.He threw a fucking knife at me.
“Look at me,” he whispers, his fingertips slipping under my shirt, drawing circles along my lower spine.
Shivering, clenching the fabric of his T-shirt in my fingers, I raise my gaze. My lips are parted and I’m still breathing hard, my pulse frantic in my chest.
His eyes scan mine. Then he says, “You did so good.” He leans in closer, and our breath mingles. He pulls me further into him, and I can feel his erection against my low belly. Tilting his head, our lips are only inches from one another.
My heart thumps loud in my head.
