“Nah.” I set my coffee cup down, and when she glances at it, I shift, blocking her view, and reach over, twisting the faucet off. “What you need—what we both need—is a shower and sleep.”
Irritation immediately flashes over her face, tightening her beautiful and tired features.
“I thought we covered you trying to tell me what I can and can’t do. Refresher course.” Her soapy hands ball into fists. “You can’t.”
I crowd closer to her, bumping her chest with my own. Bowing my head over hers, I get up in her face until our noses bump. Of course, Eshe doesn’t back down. No, she pushes closer because that’s what this is about. For her, anyway.
“You wanna fight, olori? Work out what has you practically climbing these damn walls? ’Cause you’ve been acting like you strung out since we got here. Now I’m tired. I’ve been through a fucking gauntlet of shit tonight, and the last thing I’m goingto do at God o’clock in the morning is indulge you and the guilt or whatever the hell is eating yo’ ass up. You got two choices. Either I can give you a hit of this dick to calm your li’l ass down, or you can get in that fucking shower and take your ass to sleep so we can figure out our next step with Abena. What’s it gonna be, olori?”
Her narrowed gaze roams my face, and for a long moment, I return that stare, waiting for her to pop off. With Eshe, there’s no telling. No one could ever call her predictable. But as the seconds tick by and I don’t back down, the tension gradually eases from her body, and her lashes lower, a long, low breath shuddering from between her parted lips.
“Shower,” she murmurs.
“All right.”
There’s no gloating in my voice as I raise my hand and cuff the back of her neck. Squeezing the sides lightly, I tilt her head back, and the sadness—no, the desolation—etched there is a gut punch.
This woman with the eyes of a raptor, face of a warrior angel, body of a sinner, and soul of a monster chained me to her bed, forced me to share it, then broke me with savage pleasure. And now she’s doing the same, but she’s tearing me apart with the need to destroy the source of her pain, her grief.
I didn’t ask for this, for damn sure don’t want it.
I’m not that beautiful soul she once called me, and I never aimed to be. But in this moment, and for the first time since I stood between my Miriam and her murderer, I want to be. God help me—the same God who forsook me on that same night when both my and my sister’s blood stained that ratty-ass trailer’s floor—I want to be.
Shock ripples through me at the unwanted revelation, a quake that rocks so deep, I involuntarily take a step back and away from Eshe, but with my hand still gripping her neck, I bring her with me. And if that isn’t a sign, a fucking omen, I don’t know what is.
Jesus Christ.
She stalked me.
Repulsion creeps through me, leaving a slick, oily grime behind. Not because I’m disgusted by her twisted actions. No, my revulsion is self-directed. Because I’m not repulsed. I’m hard.
What kind of sick fuck does that make me?
Hers. It makes you her sick fuck.
My mind whispers the claim before I can shut it down, and the electrifying shock of it is enough for me to release her. I pinch my forehead, rubbing it, and looking everywhere but down at her upturned face.
“Huntsman,” she says, and I drop my arm, a bolt of something I don’t recognize charging through me at the sound of that name on her lips.
That’s a lie. Yeah, I do. I recognize it.
Revulsion.
“Malachi,” I growl.
She doesn’t betray a noticeable reaction, but I can practically see that big-ass brain of hers working behind those pretty eyes. “I thought you didn’t want me to call you by that name.”
I didn’t; shit, I don’t. And I’d snatch the throat out of anyone else who uttered it so they wouldn’t make that fucking mistake again. I don’t want to be reminded of the innocent boy I was—the person I abandoned to become the monster I am. But somewhere in the past few days, I’ve started to crave that name from her. Hunger for how she looks at me when she says it. Like she sees the man as well as the assassin.
Like she can’t get enough of both.
That has my head reeling, my heart speeding so fast, I grip the counter to steady myself.
“Malachi,” I repeat, not offering a further explanation. I don’t have one.
But as she peers into my eyes, for the first time since she made the outlandish claim, I believe—I believe Eshe knows me.
“Malachi,” she murmurs, dipping her head in acknowledgment. Because she’s her, I halfway expect to see some kind of smirk, some kind ofI told you so. Instead, looks toward the stairs and the bedroom. “Shower?”
