His steps quicken, and so do mine.
I weave between the tables and out onto the narrow street, desperate for distance.
The street opens into a twisting alleyway that looks like something out of a maze. Old stone walls rise high on either side.Vines trail across archways, shadows spill into the cracks, and the path splinters into too many directions.
I try to follow the curves and turns as if this isn’t the first time I’ve been here and I take this route hundreds of times.
To my dismay, every corner looks the same. Left, right, dead end.
I look for an exit,anyexit, but there isn’t one, just more winding passages and the echo of Knox’s footsteps behind me. And we’re completely alone now.
“Isla,” Knox calls me again with more insistence. “Stop running from me.”
“Leave me alone.”
“You know I can haul you over my shoulder in one breath and drag your ass wherever I want, right?” There’s a smile in his voice. I don’t look back to see if he’s giving me that cocky trademark grin of his.
“Typical monster,” I toss back. “Why don’t you go back to work. Or toher?”
“Who’s her?”
“You know exactly who I mean.”
I whirl around another corner, searching for a way out, but the alley narrows into a tighter, shadowed passage.
Shit.I’m trapped.
I pivot to double back, but it’s too late. Knox is already there, right beside me.
He doesn’t give me a chance to say anything else.
He spins me and guides me backward until my spine hits the cool stone wall. Before I can even form a protest, his hand wraps around my wrist and his body presses against mine, caging me in.
I press my palms against his chest, trying to push him away, but all I feel is the hard, solid muscles beneath my hands. His intensity radiates around me like a heat wave.
“Knox—”
“No, love.” His jaw tightens, and he flexes his fingers at my waist. “You seem to be mistaken.”
“I’m not. You beat the shit out of Chad. You are a damn monster.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Iama monster.Yourfucking monster,” he murmurs, voice dark and raw, his breath hot on my cheek. “So, I’ll only ever chase you when you run from me. And guess what, love? I’ll always find you.”
Those words sink in, and the world tilts.
His gaze searches my face. “This would be so much easier if you’d stop running. Stop resisting.” He’s talking about everything. Not only now.
“And if I let you catch me, what happens to me then, Knox Vale?”
He leans in, brushing his forehead against mine. “We fall together.”
“No...” My voice cracks. “I can’t.”
“Yes,wife.”
That word. It does something to me. Something I can’t shake, because I want all the things that come with it. Like the belonging. Damn me, I want to belong tohim.
But Knox Vale is like an addict’s favorite drug. A bittersweet mistake you know you’ll make again and again and again. “I can’t figure you out.”
