And maybe, maybe tonight’s the night it must happen. It has to before my empathy gets the best of me.
CHAPTER 19
Rico
The soft pad of carefully tread footsteps stirs me awake.
After Constantine had left all I wanted was my solitude. His visit wasn’t unexpected but it still was brought upon me last minute and I was already mentally drained.
While sleep has never come easy to me, insomnia being a long term friend of mine, I found it even more difficult to shut myself down.
And it has everything to do with the red head occupying my guest bedroom.
She’s become a hyper-fixation I can’t rid myself of.
It’s what I’ve always done. From reading the same book over and over again. To listen to a song on loop for hours. Collecting watches to collecting daggers. Watching a movie a thousand times to rewrite the ending because I had the power to change it and make it better.
Some last hours, others months and even years. But they all tend to vanish in time.
Except her.
Imogen Murphy is damn permanent. I don’t have to understand what I’m feeling to know this to be true.
I hear her steps travel to the kitchen. I can’t help but wonder if she’ll be brave enough to do it. Will she try to escape? Something that feels an awful close to anticipation floods me at the chance of chasing her again.
Instead, I hear her rummaging through the kitchen cupboards. All much to my disappointment. She’s probably hungry. I had forgotten about dinner while forming new plans for her. I tend to do that. There’s too many times I’ve forgotten a meal myself. It just seems to slip.
As I hear her footsteps travel back down the hall I know she didn’t visit the kitchen for food. No, she has sinister intentions. And something about it has my blood pumping.
Is this what thrill feels like?
Red blood pumping hot. Pulse beating wildly. My body feels as if it’s on an edge, just ready to jump. This, this is what it must feel like. Fuck, it’s glorious to know.
Anticipation only explains why I’m pretending I’m still asleep as I hear her outside my door.
What do you have planned for me, gazzella?
I feel her the moment she enters the room. Something I never thought was possible. But it’s undeniable. As a man who believes in facts and science she makes a man like me question if witchcraft can exist.
With the loss of sight due to the darkness all my other senses are heightened. Where I usually crave silence I’m wanting to hear everything that concerns her. Her footsteps. Her hushed breaths. The damn swish of fabric. I want to hear it all.
The edge of my bed dips from her weight. My pulse roars in my ears.
She slowly climbs up the bed, her legs on either side of my body. I swear I feel the phantom touch of her. And I’ve never wanted to be touched by anyone as much as I do at this moment.
Then I feel it.
The edge of the carving knife is against my throat.
She applies the slightest pressure but I can feel the hesitancy to follow through.
“I thought a promise was made between you and I,” I say into the night. She startles. The knife cuts into my skin. The pain is only short lived. Hearing her gasp, the feel of her fully straddling me; that will burn itself into my memory and stay with me until I die.
“You’re awake,” she breathes.
“It would appear so,” I respond dryly.
She shifts and it does something to me. It pulls in my abdomen. All the tension in my body goes southward. If she wiggles her hips one more time she’ll feel something she won’t want to.
