“Next.”
He lunged for me.
I swerved around him.
He caught my arm.
I kicked the back of his knee.
He toppled forward.
I broke free.
He was quicker, grabbing me a second time, flinging a blade under my jugular. The metal, cold and sharp against my throat forced me into an instant halt.
One single swift slice, I was dead. “Damn it.”
“There we go.” He held me from behind and walked me forward, keeping the knife angled across my throat. “Hands on the desk.”
I planted both of my palms onto the surface of the desk, needing to slightly bend over to do it as he held me from behind. A position he revelled in, judging by his chuckle. He used his knee to knock my legs open. His finger slipped over the notches of my spine right down to the end of my tail bone and around to my inner thighs.
“Now, Princess.” He pulled up my dress. “What do you have under here?”
12
I kissed Jenny Hobbson when I was fourteen and as we pulled away, she giggled with bright red cheeks.
I felt nothing. A glorious emptiness.
I got up, telling her, “no, thank you.”
She cried.
Again, I felt nothing. A glorious emptiness.
Richard Briggs. Tall, gorgeous, an unalloyed gentleman, his family owned three islands. I had heard people tried to electroshock their hearts around him to force a connection.
We kissed in his bed, his hand roamed to my breast. It felt like a doctor’s examination. I promptly left.
Nothing. A glorious emptiness.
Many people dripped into my life, all of whom I tried to feel and all of whom I placed back where I had found them like a packet of pasta on the grocery shelf that looked too plain.
Magnus told me he had a similar problem. He said some people were meaningless, most of them, in fact, probably all of them. To Magnus, people were numbers. Each of them was, “one.” One vote to keep him in power, one dollar to send in support of his cause, one body to stand in front of him to be lectured to when he spoke upon a podium.
But me? I was not “one,” I was worth thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, trillions.
He told me it was natural, to feel nothing for others, but then there will always be someone special who would make you do senseless things.
That person would be my Soulmate.
When he found Cynthia, I thought I would be envious, but no, it gave me hope.
I wanted to feel.
Anything. A glorious something.
“I'm going to touch you,” Dig said. “Right up your thighs and see if you’ve got anything hiding under there for me. You let me know if it makes you uncomfortable.”
