As I follow the man who’s leaving Mara’s building, I can feel every muscle in my body twitching, the same rage that I felt toward Maxwell throbbing through my veins with the intensity of violent arousal, but amplified by one simple fact.
Maxwell touched her against her will. That was vengeance. He deserved punishment.
Shewantedthis man to touch her.
Clearly she needs a reminder of who it is that she belongs to.
Clearly I can’t wait any longer to make it apparent to her that everything has changed.
I pace after him through the shadows, my nerves frayed and my control on the verge of snapping completely. I don’t know exactly what it was that pushed me over the edge—Was it when she invited him inside? When they sat on the couch? When his hand touched her face?—but I know this is a line that can’t be crossed again.
A man touching her against her will deserves punishment. A man being invited to touch her who isn’t me can’t be allowed.
I watched them sit on the couch. Watched him lean in. Watched them kiss.
The rage that floods through me is primal and unstoppable. I've killed men in cold blood without feeling a fraction of this fury. I've ordered executions, burned buildings, destroyed lives, all coldly and without feeling anything except the analytical assurance that it was necessary for whatever purpose it served.
But watching another man touch Mara made me want to burn down the entire city.
I can practically feel the confusion and frustration wafting off of him as he strides down the frozen concrete sidewalk, his hands shoved in the pockets of his peacoat. Mara sent him away, which eased any anger I might have felt toward her, but itdoesn’t matter. He touched her. He kissed her. He was inside her apartment, on her couch, in her space.
He crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.
I followed him on foot, keeping a block behind, watching as he walked toward the subway station on Houston. He was texting someone—probably a friend, probably complaining about the girl who invited him home and then changed her mind.
It’s not her fault,I remind myself.It’s mine. I’ve waited too long to make my presence known. The gifts haven’t been enough. She needs flesh and blood. Touch.
She’s not materialistic, clearly, and that isn’t a bad thing. But if she needs the physicality of her lover to be secure that she’s taken, then I’ll give her that.
After I deal with this asshole, and make sure he never touches her again.
He turns down a street that leads into a quieter neighborhood, and when I see a dark alleyway just ahead, I quicken my pace, getting closer step by step until I’m close enough to grab him.
He doesn’t see it coming. One gloved hand over his mouth, the other around his arm, pulling him into the darkness. He struggles and tries to scream, but I’m a professional, and I’ve been doing this for a long time.
With one smooth movement, I swing him around and pin him against the wall, one arm across his throat. His eyes are wide with terror, but as his mouth opens to try to speak, I don’t give him a chance.
I just hit him.
My fist connects with his jaw, and I feel something crack. The pain in my knuckles is distant, irrelevant. I hit him again. And again.
I've beaten men before. It's part of the business,. But I've always done it with purpose. It’s always been cold and calculated. Even when I’ve tortured men, it’s only been enough to send a message, not enough to lose control.
This is different.
This is personal.
Every strike feels like a release, rage flowing out through my fists as I turn his face into nothing more than meat. I hit him until my knuckles are bloody, and his face is unrecognizable, until he stops struggling and slumps against the alley wall, still breathing, but barely.
I know I need to stop. But it doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t feel like it could ever be enough. Like I could reduce every man who ever touched her to nothing more than pulp and I would still want more.
I grab his jaw, forcing his swollen eyes to focus on me. Blood is pouring from his nose, his mouth, the lacerations around his eyes and on his face. He makes a helpless, pleading, choked sound, and I feel disgust squirm through me, joining the pulsing anger.
"Say her name," I snarl.
He stares at me as if he doesn’t understand. His eyes are unfocused, the whites red, his mind probably scrambling to figure out what is happening to him and why.
I squeeze his jaw harder. "Say. Her. Name."
