He lets go of me.
“Run.”
One word and the earth shifts.
My axis spins as I scramble away. The fractured heart in my chest beats loudly, roaring in my ears as every one of my senses narrows onto the front door, just like he told me to.
I want God to hear my prayer for once in my life.Pleasedon’t let anyone be outside.
Just like the game of cat-and-mouse we played a week ago, my freedom is in sight. All I need to do isopen the damn door.
But he stops me from reaching civilization when my hand touches the handle.
He yanks me back with a fist in my hair and crashes me into his chest when a scream breaks past my lips. “You can’t outrun me,” he hums. “You’ll never get away from me.”
My feet have no choice but to comply as he walks me back to the bed. It’s useless to throw my arms out when he shoves me face-first into the mattress, because his torso is right behind me, forcing me to fall into submission.
He drives into me without warning, making pleasure and pain thunder to every corner of my body. The cotton sheets muffle my moans and cries, and the pressure building in my core is unstoppable. This time, I’m confident I won’t survive. When my climax rips through me, everything goes black, and all I can hear is the sound of Mickey snarling his release, spilling his seed into me.
The hard muscles of his body crush me against the bed as he topples over, rasping his tired breath against my sweat-stained skin.
My heart swells as Mickey rolls us over, positioning me on top of him so there isn’t an inch of space between us. Then he kisses me like there is nothing else in this world or the next that he’d rather be doing.
We hold each other, letting the moment stretch on. I realize another truth: we bring out the best and the worst in each other, but the only time we can breathe is when we’re together. With all the darkness in our past, our love story is as cheesy as it is cliché, because nothing else matters as long as we’re with each other.
Chapter 33
ISABELLA
“Iwanttoshowyou something.”
I blink up at Mickey, wanting to stay like this for an eternity. “What is it?”
A lopsided grin splits across his face. “It's a surprise.”
I groan.
“Hey,” he argues. “When have I ever done a shitty surprise?”
He has a point; I’ll give him that. “Remember when I was eight, you caught a mouse for me, and I needed a tetanus shot because it bit me.”
“I was ten years old,” he protests, then says under his breath, “I can’t believe you still remember that.”
I bite the inside of my lip and plant a kiss on his chest. “You should have been more specific in your question then.”
“Here we go.”
Hitting his chest playfully, I let him slip out of the sheets and into his pants. I follow suit, running across the room to fight the chill and jump into some warmer clothes. “No blindfolds this time,” I say.
He curses. I snap my head around to him, and he winks at me with a smirk drawn across his face. “I’m willing to negotiate.”
Taking Mickey’s outstretched hand, he leads me into the motel’s corridor with peeling wallpaper and spiderwebs decorating the edging.
“Should I be scared?” I ask, hugging his arm.
My body flushes with warmth when he kisses my forehead. “Never.”
“Not even a little?”
