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“Bashed in his face.”

“Oh, that’s…umm.”

“What?”

“Very up close and personal.”

“He made it personal when he threatened to drag you into the station and interrogate you about the night you disappeared.” Mal’s eyes go wide with fear. “Yeah, baby. I killed him because you didn’t have an alibi.”

“Nox…I?—”

“Isn’t it odd though… Three drug dealers being killed on the same night you went looking for drugs.” She audibly gulps, eyes pleading for me to let this go. She’s not ready to let me see this side of her yet.

“Lennox…” she whispers.

“The killer would’ve been completely drenched in blood, and you came home wearing different clothes than what you left in.” She knows I know. How can she not? I’m not a fucking idiot.

Mallory attempts to pull her hand away from me again, and this time I let her. Turning her back to me, she sits on the side of the bed. Tension and terror strung so tightly through her body, I doubt she can even breathe a full breath. Her hair cascades down her back as she hides herself from me, a small tremor wracking her body.

“All such a very big coincidence… Don’t you agree?” I mutter loud enough for her to hear. I won’t confirm her biggest fear, not now anyway. I long to have her open up to me about this willingly—show me that side of herself, like I did. Even if I was behind a mask, she knew what she was getting into by engaging with that part of me. She watched me take Edward away into the shadows. She knows he died, even if I’ve never confirmed it, he and Ryan never came back to harass her.

Her body freezes in place, head slowly turning back around. Mallory’s teary eyes lock with mine, and she nods. I extend my hand to her, a silent plea for her to not pull away from me becauseI know, even if I don’t confirm it.Trust me with this, I beg without uttering a word. Her delicate hand slips into mine, and it fires elation through my soul.

I yank her to me, my arms banding around her as I crash us together against the mattress. I pour every emotion into this kiss. Until the air around us is thick and heavy with our panting breaths. The heat coming off her is enough to suffocate me. My hardness presses into her, and she rolls her hips against me. Though she breathes out a sound of satisfaction, she says, “We shouldn’t, you’ll make your injury worse.”

I pull the front of my boxer-briefs down, pressing inside her slowly. “I’ll fuck you whenever I want. Even if my organs have ruptured, and I’m pissing blood. If I want you on my cock, that’s where you’ll be.”

“Hot,” she sarcastically says, giggling. The sound dissolving into a moan as I really start to move. The pain is fucking unbearable, but I can’t stop. She let me in, even if it’s in the most minuscule way. She trusted me, and I feel like I’ve won a war.

Chapter Fifty-five

Mallory

“It’s time to wake up, little siren.” His rumbling voice pulls me from the dream I’m so deeply wrapped up in. This time I’m the predator, not the prey. Johnson is nowhere to be seen, and I’m ending Jefferds’s life for threatening everything I worked so hard to get back to. His blood sprays across my face as I make him pay dearly for shooting my soulmate.

“Mal-lory…” Gentle kisses trail across my skin as his strong arms band around me, pulling me close.

“Gotta go,” I whisper to Jefferds as I slit his throat and fade from the dream. The real world flickering back into focus as my lashes flutter open.

“Who were you talking to?” Nox asks, eyes gazing down upon me worriedly.

“What?” I groan, mind still groggy.

“You were mumbling in your sleep, which isn’t unusual. Then you said ‘gotta go’ clear as day before you woke up”

“Oh…”Well this is embarrassing.Do Itell him the truth, or lie again? After the other night, I don’t think I have to be dishonest, and thiswasonly a dream. I didn’t kill Jefferds, he did. “I was…ummm.” Why is this so fucking hard?

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” He looks so dejected, and it breaks my damn heart.

“No, I want to. Just…UGH!”

Baby steps. This is the start of not hiding who you are at the core from him.

“Mal—”

Cutting him off, my words fly out of me faster than an auctioneer. “I dreamt that I was torturing Detective Jefferds, and when I heard you calling my name, I said ‘gotta go’ before I killed him.”

Nox’s eyes dilate faster than I’ve ever witnessed, and I’m almost positive he’s immediately turned on.Well, that’s better than wanting to admit me to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.A muscle tics in his jaw as he grits his teeth against the throb of pain in his abdomen that pulses with the beat of his heart in his cock. Nox inhales a deep, steadying breath and exhales slowly. “I didn’t know you could lucid dream,” he says, clearly trying to divert the blood from his dick back to his brain.