“Funny,” I quip and resume cutting, but I can feel it—the weight of him watching me. My mouth dries, and I swallow, cutting too far, too thin, and the slice falls apart.Shit.“So,” I start. “You going to tell me where you’ve been?”
“No.”
“Are you planning on letting me go soon?”
“No.”
“How about telling me why I’m here? Oh, let me guess. That’s a no.” I turn to face him, and he’s right behind me. Close enough that my breath catches in my throat, close enough that my body jolts on instinct, the knife jerking up between us before my brain catches up—pure reflex, pure survival.
For one suspended heartbeat, the knife is pointed straight at his stomach. I don’t know who moves first. One second there’s space between us. The next, his hand closes over the blade.
Steel bites into flesh with a wet, intimate sound, and I freeze, horrified, as his palm closes tighter, stopping the knife dead inches from his body. Blood wells instantly, spilling between his knuckles as he drives the knife to a halt inches from his body.
My fingers are still wrapped around the handle. His hand is closed around the edge. We’re locked together by the same weapon, and he never breaks eye contact. Not when the metal cuts him. Not when his skin splits open. Not when my breath stutters against his. He just holds it there. Holdsmethere.
My chest lifts on a breath that doesn’t quite finish, and the movement presses me into him—into the hard line of his torso, into the solid heat of a body that should feel unsafe but instead feels devastatingly alive. The contact sends a sharp, electric awareness through me, and the proximity floods my senses.
He smells like winter air and worn leather, with something darker threaded beneath it, a faint trace of smoke that clings to him like memory. The heat between us sparks fast, then falters, volatile and uninvited. It’s the kind of reaction that doesn’t care if you’re ready.
His breathing changes, just slightly. It’s still controlled. Still measured. But deeper now. Like he’s not the one standing here with his hand split open. LikeI’mthe dangerous thing.
Blood drips onto the tile, and the scent shifts as iron rises between us, turning everything more intimate than it should be. My throat goes dry, my pulse everywhere at once—wrists, neck… lower. I should let go.
I don’t.
“You’re bleeding,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
As if pain is easier than stepping back, his grip tightens, and the blade shifts a fraction, slicing deeper into his palm, the movement pulling me closer to him.
His gaze drops to my mouth, lingers, then back to my eyes. “Stop fucking studying me.”
I shake my head once, barely. “That’s not?—”
“You won’t like what you find.” His jaw tightens, the words landing like a confession, like he’s telling me the truth for the first time.
My gaze flicks to his hand again, to the blood that won’t stop, and something inside me twists—something instinctive, something trained, something that has spent years reaching for broken things and trying to make them safe.
With a tug, he jerks me up close, the edge of the knife pressing against his stomach now. “You think you can kill me?”
I swallow hard, my eyes trained on his. “I might be vulnerable here, but I’m not stupid.”
“What’s so stupid about wanting to kill the man who kidnapped you?”
“Because if you die, I die.”
Confusion settles on his brow, and my fingers finally loosen on the knife’s handle. “Every door out of his house has a code,” I state. “If you die, there’s not a chance in hell I’m getting out.”
“Smart girl.” He drops the knife, blood splashing across the tiles as he steps back. The distance is so abrupt, it’s like he’s tearing himself away from the edge of something.
His eyes stay on me for one last beat—blue, cold, burning, then he turns and storms up the stairs, boots hitting wood hard enough to make the house tremble.
I’m frozen, staring at the smear of blood on the floor, my heart still pounding. But it’s not the sight of blood that makes my stomach turn. It’s the realization that for one fraction of a second, when he was right there, bleeding in front of me…
…I didn’t want him to move away.
August 4th, 2023
I don’t want to be someone’s decision.
