Chapter 1
Dark brown eyes bore into me, making me nearly shudder from some unforeseen emotion. My confession hung in the silence between us like an awkward joke of some kind. Embarrassment rose in me as I realized he likely didn't believe a word I said. Maybe it was better that way, I told myself, if he believe me crazy now.
Then he might leave me alone.
Braving a glance at his face, I froze. I seemed to halt even the churning of my stomach as I watched the corners of his lips rise slowly into a dangerous grin. Slowly, moving as a predator would, keeping the tense quiet filling our lungs, he took a step closer.
What was one became two.
Three.
Seven.
I closed my eyes as his footsteps stopped. Instantly, I was enveloped by a familiar scent.
How cruel.
The candle I'd lit all alone on my twenty-eighth birthday, not even bothering with cake, knowing no presents were coming, was this very scent. Inspired, I wrote it into words, attached it to the darkness that had threatened inside me that day. And now, here I was, standing before the man who smelled of things I wanted to forget.
Lavender tickled my nose, coming from the boutonniere pinned to his suit. There was also the scent of leather, from his newly made gloves he'd just taken off a mere moment ago when he'd brought me to this abandoned place. An unmistakable amber hung in the air, the cologne clinging to him, arriving just as swiftly as he'd strode into the space in front of me.
His graceful fingers lifted my chin, all so I'd open my eyes and meet his own in a fiery battle. I did as was expected, gazing upon that statuesque face, and his eyes curved in amusement as he leaned closer. His breath tickled my cheek.
"If you truly are the author of this story, and I was created somewhere inside that pretty head of yours..." He trailed off, his head tilting to the side, thumb straying from its initial position, brushing along my jaw tantalizingly slow. The heat of his touch, of his skin on mine, made me want to give in, to curl up in someone's arms, whether it be his or another, seeking that warmth in intimacy with no care of right or wrong.
I waited, dreading the end of his question, begging it to be rhetorical, desperate to hide.
"Then," he continued slowly. "Surely, there is some part of you that loves me, isn't there?"
After refusing his advances, stating my lack of emotion toward him, he now held a new knowledge. The nail of my finger scraped painfully against the tender skin of my thumb, all in an attempt to clear my mind and force a straight face to tell him.
That is...
To tell him anything but the truth.
"No," I said confidently, my voice not trembling as I stared into his dark eyes to lie. "I've never loved you."
It was the worst lie.
The truth was far more dangerous.
Silence hung between us as he gaged my rigid façade. Accepting that he took my words as true, I slowly turned, my gaze falling to the floor as I moved to my escape as if there was nobody waiting for me, no need to rush.
I'd said my piece and he had believed.
My mask crumbled on my face, but my step didn't falter.
I would leave here. Alone. Remain alone.
And I would stay alive in this hellish world.
I would live.
I held my tears, knowing this moment would haunt me, would kill me a little more each time I thought of it.
Of course, I loved him. I held each of my characters, figments of myself and my thoughts, dear to my heart.
But to love him, truly love him, meant never leaving. I knew his obsession. I knew his darkness. His plans and desires for the future that I'd engraved upon his ever fiber of being. If I told him the way my heart craved him, escape was futile. A caged bird, pampered and cared for, but ultimately, trapped. I'd spent far too much time in that manner. Writing had been my escape before.
Now, it rested solely on a single lie.
Warmth caressed my wrist and suddenly, there was a tug, pulling me back. The door, just in front of me, became farther out of reach, and that scent returned stronger, embracing me from behind.
He laughed, his front flush against my back, and shook his head. Leaning his head on mine, his lips caressing the edge of my ear, he whispered just how horribly I had uttered that lie to him.
"That might've been a convincing lie... if you'd have said that to anyone else." Teeth gently nipped at the sensitive skin on my ear, eliciting an involuntary gasp. "But, surely, you know me well enough."
I did.
I knew all too well.
Everything.
My breath caught as he tilted my head with a gentle hand, his other smoothing across the front of my dress, holding me firmly in place. Heat rushed through me again, lingering, forming a new desperation inside. His cheek now rested against my own, our faces side by side.
"Did you really think I'd let you go with a lie like that?"
A sigh escaped me and my body gave in, leaning against his. As I felt the gentle firmness in his grip, the heat of his body, the soft touch of his skin on mine, my legs felt unbearably weak. His hand which had held my chin moved to one of my bare shoulders. I resigned myself to my new fate. Even I could tell, by the way he spoke, he wasn't just guessing. He already knew with certainty that my words had been false.
"Now," he said, lips moving higher, turning, nearly pressing a kiss to my face. His nose brushed against me and I shuddered. "Tell me the truth."
My eyes fell shut, my breathing shallow. Every part of me honed in on him, on the light gust of air tickling my face, the shape of his body which enveloped mine, the almost sticky heat where we were meshed together. The prey had been undeniably caught in his trap.
"I..." It came out frail, a tiny whisper of a word. Somehow, it was hard to admit it aloud, the truth. "I do love you," I managed, my voice shaking. "More than I should."
He had been a villain in my story, someone capable of doing terrible things to people with no regrets. This man was bad in every version of the word.
Not a hero.
Not a lover.
Not kind.
He was everything undesirable in stability.
Vengeful.
Obsessive.
A predator.
And I loved him, not for his heart, but for his actions. I had long been in need of escape, long been hoping for someone to save me, but not in this world.
He was the personification of a man who could destroy my demons with a single encounter.
I had clung to the image of him, like a fool, dressing him up in the things I loved most. The dark suit paired with a blood-red tie. Brown eyes able to express anything they desired. Tall and strong. Fit. Cleanly shaved face with a grin that could melt the largest coldest glaciers in existence.
All the little things I'd put inside him came back to me as I stood there, captured.
A gentle kiss pressed against the side of my face, his voice humming contentedly as he continued to hold me tight.
"That's a good girl," he murmured.
My heartbeat quickened as I opened my eyes. The door before me remained open in my vision, but in my mind, it was already long closed, locked tight. I was going nowhere.
"That's my girl," he said softly, already claiming me as his own.
No longer could I fight it.
The truth of what our futures held.
I'd written it, after all, so I knew best what I had been hoping to avoid.
