Focus, Kay. Go save your demon.
Pushing forward, I opened the French doors and stepped into the night. My skin prickled with goosebumps as the chill of the water greeted me. My eyes landed on the discarded items in the grass. His gun. His knives. His cancer sticks.
If I were anyone else, someone with common sense perhaps, I would snatch that gun up and kill him once he emerged.
But I wasn’t anyone else. I was Karina Jones, a woman in love with a mad man, with a blue-eyed demon in need of salvation.
Shaking off my doubt, I approached the steps. The rails were made of iron, spiraling down into the depths. The water was pitch black, and my stomach dropped at the thought of the abyss below. I began my descent, my bare feet hitting the cold metal of the steps one by one. I stopped one step above the water, my eyes searching frantically for him. My heart screamed out in a new kind of pain as my eyes filled with tears.
Swallowing my fear, I lifted my foot—
A hand wrapped around my arm in a painful grip and turned me around. My eyes went wide at the drenched man standing above me, water droplets falling from his shaved head, down the side of his painfully handsome face to trace his sharp jawline before falling onto his soaked dress clothes.
“What are you doing?” he hissed, baring his teeth.
“I-I—”
Stammering, I was unable to form the words as my heart jumped inside my chest and relief settled on my shoulders. Those icy eyes flared, and he yanked me up to him, my hands gripping his shirt at the waist to keep my balance. Solid—nothing but solid muscle underneath my fingertips. My cheeks heated.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” he growled, his eyes darting out to the water before settling back on my face.
“I saw you go under.”
Silence. A jaw jump.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said softly.
His eyes flashed with something I desperately wished I could decipher. Weeks of his cold shoulder. Long days of his cruelness. Tonight was the night I would break through his icy walls. I needed to.
Bravery or stupidity took over, taking the wheel from me as my fingers flexed against his sides, my body damn near igniting from the contact.Nine years.I never once touched him unless it was his upper arm. This was something my fingers would never forget.
“You came out here to check on me?” His voice was dripping with sarcasm and mockery. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my face neutral and just nodded. He yanked me up the steps as his face broke out into a cruel smile. “You stupid woman.”
“Col, please,” I begged, yanking myself free from his grasp. He chuckled as he bent to get his things from the ground. I watched in silence as he took out a cigarette and put it between his lips. “Please, don’t smoke in front of me.”
He pointed at me, the cigarette staying between his lush lips. “Get inside.” He was pushing me away again. I took a step closer.
“Are you okay?” I asked, concern clouding my thoughts. “Aren’t you cold?”
He stared at me, and I gestured to my room on the east side of the house.
“I came out here to make sure you were okay. I saw you from my window, and when you didn’t come up, I got scared,” I admitted as I slowly lowered my hand.
His throat bobbed—a crack in his fortress. I took another step, closing the distance between us. His chest rose and fell at a steady tempo, which told me he wasn’t cold. How could he be? He was made of ice and pain.
“I scared you?”
A small whimper escaped me as I nodded. “Yes. I didn’t know if you were okay.”
Slowly, his head tilted, assessing me as if he had never seen me before. “I scare you for the wrong reasons, angel.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“I have, and I will again,” he said, his voice void of emotion.
I shook my head. “Don’t do this. Please.”
Stay with me, Col.
