And bad.
For me. Very bad.
I stop about five feet from him. He’s parked his black car next to mine, on the drivers side. I can’t help but think that’s not a coincidence. Sweat has cooled my skin, and my need to brush away my wayward hairs is stemmed by my desire to not look like I’m primping in front of him. I’m wearing my sports tank that’s a razorback, exposing my collarbones, shoulders and shoulder blades. My shorts are high-thigh and tight, and I know my legs and butt look good in them.
I wish I’d brought sweats and a sweater. His eyes flick down to my toes, meandering up my body, and settle on my lips. He stares at them a little too long.
“What do you want, Emmett?” I demand. I don’t want to walk closer to him or to my car, so I stay put. “I’m not in the mood.”
He unhitches himself from the car, and I contemplate making a break for it. But instead I’m rooted to the concrete, a tiny voice in my ear saying bad move, Ophelia.
“You know,” he says, “I’ve been trying to think of how to punish you for hanging up on me on Saturday night. And then blocking me.”
“Oh great,” I say sarcastically, but inwardly a twinge of fear strikes a chord. “You know how I just love to be punished.”
His lips twitch. “You’ve been a bad girl.”
“That’s relative. I’m great, actually.” He’s getting closer, but it’s like he’s approaching a wild deer, and his movements are slow, coordinated. I step back. “Why are you walking toward me? Please stop.”
“Then don’t back away,” he says, stepping forward again. “Come on, I just want you to take a ride with me.”
The normality of his voice chills me. Almost like the blank stare he gave me earlier in the day, with Vivian draped around him. None of the lust from our first encounter. And none of the sadism of every encounter after that.
“What the hell makes you think I would willingly go anywhere with you?” I snap. My voice cracks from the uneasiness. I had gotten used to the cruelty, but this strange, calculated, yet distant, eerie deadness in his eyes is shooting straight to my gut. Everything in me is telling me to run, but I know that will only make it worse.
And then…there is the other part of me that feels sucked in like a moth to a flame. His gaze is locked on to mine as he steps closer and closer, too slowly. I can almost hear the Jaws theme playing through my migraine, but that’s too comedic for a moment this dangerous.
He freezes, inches from my face. A disturbingly cold breeze hits the strands of my loose hair ever so slightly…seemingly freezing time right along with his body. Everything slows.
His hand reaches for my face, and for the first time since I arrived, I don’t feel the urge to flinch or bolt. It’s like I’m suspended in some magnetic hold.
“You can try to ignore me, block me or whatever else you like,” he says softly, his fingers brushing along my jaw. “But we both know what’s going to happen. It has to. Sooner or later.”
I give my best sarcastic laugh, but it’s too thinly veiled. I know he sees straight through me. My defenses are officially tattered.
“And just what is that?” I tilt my head, trying to sound as harsh and uninterested as possible. But the seriousness in my face is giving me away.
“When two bodies are drawn to each other like ours,” he whispers in his low, grumbling voice that ripples straight through me, “we have no choice but to act on it eventually. Why torture ourselves like this?”
He is close. Too close. His lips so close to my neck I can feel his hot and heavy breath burning into my skin. I swear I hear a growling snarl between each inhale and exhale.
I hate myself for it, but I want to give in. I want to believe he’s right…That however fucked up it may be, our bodies are meant to meld together, in violence or in sex. And obviously I’d prefer the sex, if he’d actually behave like a decent person.
“I could never be with someone like you,” I snarl against his neck. “Not after the things you’ve done to me.”
“Oh no?” he smirks, completely unfazed. “So, you’re telling me when you read that note…and my texts…you didn’t linger on them? Think about it all…even just a minute longer than you meant to?”
His fingers trail through the back of my hair. I want to turn into him more, push my body against his. Break through all of this sick tension that has been building.
But memories of the cruel and vicious side I’d seen of him stop me. I can’t move.
I wish I could run, or that he couldn’t read my mind so well. It sickens me that for all he has put me through, he knows that some part of me deep down still can’t deny this primal attraction to him.
“You know, no answer is an answer,” he murmurs with a cocky smile.
I am paralyzed. I have no energy to fight back, to deny him. And I don’t hate myself enough to surrender to him.
He finally takes several steps backward, leaving the places along my face and neck that he just touched cold. A loud and trembling exhale escapes my lungs, just for the simple relief from the pressure of saying or doing anything. For a brief moment, I’m free.