Page 73 of His

“You can’t leave.”

It was not the truth I wanted to hear. Damn him! To never talk to anyone else - to never see Jules, to never walk in freedom outside. To be leashed, constantly, always on the end of a line connected to him.

I pulled my hand away. It was the only thing I could do. My one act of resistance, however small. He stood up from the bed.

“I’ll put a lock on the outside of the bedroom door, so I can leave you inside here when I go out. I’ll do it this evening.”

He made to go, and I realized that there was one more thing I could do.

“Gav?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t leave again. Don’t kill him.”

It was a sacrifice. Atrade. But then again, what was I sacrificing? My life was nothing here. It meant nothing. Until I died or escaped, I would be nothing. And until then, I could keep him from killing. That was the only place I could make meaning.

This is what I told myself. I rejected any attraction I had toward him, repudiated it. If I was to let him touch me, it would be for this reason only.

And yet, secretly, I knew that it was not the reason at all.

“Kat?”

He spoke my name. He had no right to speak my name like that, the sound tripping off of his tongue in a way that made my insides clench with desire. Desire and hate.

“Stay with me,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I don’t want you to kill again.”

“You’re a liar, kitten,” he said gently. “You lie to me. You lie to yourself.”

“Stay with me,” I said desperately. “A trade. Do whatever you want to me.”

He smiled. And the way he smiled made me feel as though I was already on the kitchen table, waiting for him to stab me through the heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Gav

When I installed the locks on the door, she did not even look at me. Her nose was buried in her book, a thriller. Her eyes stayed glued in one place, though, and she did not turn the page once. I could sense her eyes tracking me in her peripheral vision.

An interesting fact - when you see something in the corner of your eye, everything is black and white. The light entering at such an extreme angle doesn’t hit the central cones and rods that show color. I wondered what shade of gray she saw in me. I turned to her and saw her eyes flit down the page.

“Tonight, what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You said—”

“You can do anything you want to do to me. That’s the trade.”

Irritation scraped at my nerves.

“I’m giving you a chance to make it easier on yourself, kitten.”

“I don’t want it to be easier.”

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