“You’re a pawn, a toy.”
Thatgarners an outward physical reaction he’s unable to control.
His chin jerks back toward his neck, and I curse myself for not tempering the bald statement. Yes, I’m usually blunt, but this time, I could’ve softened the blow. No one likes to hear they were played.
He steps back from me, lowering a hand and firmly knocking my hand away from his dick. One step. Two. Three. Until he’s leaning against the huge island.
“I’m no one’s plaything, olori.”
Olori.
Last time he called me that, he growled it between my legs.
I can’t help it; my gaze drops below his waist to where his cock shoves against his pants in an angry salute. My palm burns as if the mammoth curved length is branded into the skin. With effort, I raise my scrutiny, and while his dick might be bricked up, his face and eyes appear unaffected, frigid. This isn’t Malachi I’m talking to. Not the man who dove face-first into my pussy, then turned it out like a sprinkler system. This is the calculated, in-control Huntsman.
“No, you’re not. At least not knowingly,” I agree, crossing my arms over my chest. “I keep telling you there isn’t much I don’t know about you, and you still don’t seem to get why. I have knowledge of details about your past, your favorite foods, your favorite movies and books, that no one else does. I keep popping up in your safe houses. Even when we fought, didn’t you wonder how I anticipated some of your moves? Yeah, I’m damn good, but I still had an edge. How do you think I know all that?”
He studies me, those gray-blue eyes moving over my face as if searching for answers that he hasn’t allowed himself to analyze too deeply until this moment, when I won’t let him avoid it any longer. And I catch the exact second that the truth strikes him.
His mouth twists, while his eyebrows arrow down in a fierce scowl.
“You fucking stalking me, Eshe?”
I smile and shrug. “I call it ‘research’ or even ‘reconnaissance,’ but okay, since you didn’t know I was following you or put cameras in your shit, I suppose technically it could be labeled ‘stalking.’”
It’s fanciful thinking to believe a blast of fire emanates from him, but hand to the Man, billows of heat roll off him and damn near singe my clothes from my body. Anyone else would be terrified at the fury and pain—mine—blazing in his eyes. But not me.
Oh noooo, not me.
I push off the counter and shift forward, eager to be burned by those flames, by that rage. Shiiid, I want to be consumed by it until nothing’s left but ashes. And then, if that muthafucka don’t pick up those ashes and rub me all over his naked body, I’ma know somethin’.
“I can’t even put the blame on you; it’s really mine. Somewhere, I must’ve played my hand, slipped and forgotten how closely I was being watched. There are times I forget how much of a cunning and dangerous cunt Abena really is, and that got me caught up.” I frown. “Of course, I’d heard rumors about you like everyone else, but two years ago on February twenty-second, you came to Elysian. No one else seemed to notice you, but I did. It was how you moved—so a part of the darkness that even I questioned if you existed. But you did, and that night, I followed you when you left. And I saw you track a man, watched you kill him. Watched your face as you did it.”
I squeeze my thighs together as my clit thumps and liquid arousal spills from my pussy onto the sweatpants he loaned me.
“What did you see?” he asks, his gaze flicking down.
I don’t need to bow my head to glimpse my nipples that are undoubtedly pushing against my sweatshirt.
“Euphoria. Satisfaction. You like what you do. Nah.” I shake my head. “Youlovewhat you do.”
“I might nut when I snap your neck, olori,” he whispers.
I shiver. Full-body shiver.
I anticipate glimpsing disgust in his gaze, but like I told him—accused him of—earlier, we’re both sick fucks.
“Like I said, I’m to blame for you being used. If you have enough resources, money, and motivation, any information is available. And Abena has plenty of all that. I don’t know exactly how or when she found out—maybe she had me followed, or I was just careless and didn’t cover my tracks. None of it matters now. I should’ve caught it when there were one too many slick comments with your name dropped in when she’d never mentioned you before. Yeah, she knew.”
I smirk, but the anger that always accompanies thoughts of Abena kindles in my chest, and I run my thumb over the skin replacing my amputated pinkie. When his scrutiny skims down, I drop my arms, forcing my hands to relax at my sides.
“When I found you in the woods, I was surprised, but then again, I wasn’t. I hadn’t expected Abena to make a move on me so soon. But I underestimated her; she sent you of all people after me. She knew what she was doing; she couldn’t have found a more brilliant method of punishment. Either I die knowing it’s at the hands of the man I developed a… preoccupation over. Or I kill that same man and have to live with the pain, grief, and guilt of knowing I took his life. Whichever outcome, she wins.”
“Liar.”
The word isn’t a roar, isn’t a crash of sound. It’s more of a low, rumbled hiss, and yet it still echoes in the kitchen like a clap of thunder. I blink, taken aback for a second by the power, the intensity of it.
When that big body moves with the quickness of a man half his size and weight, I’m not prepared for it. He lunges for me in a burst of speed and strength that’s fueled by the rage glowing in his bright eyes, that curls the corner of his mouth into a fierce snarl.
