Page 125 of Caution to the Wind

I froze as the blood fell down the elevator shaft of my body to crash into the soles of my feet. Wooziness descended so quickly, I thought I’d faint.

Axe-Man had found the letters.

Not just letters, really, though I kept those unopened with the “return to sender” stamp across the front in the box, too, along with print-outs of the emails I’d sent and postcards I’d mailed. I carried the box with me where ever I moved as a reminder of all that I’d lost.

All the detritus of my bald longing on the floor at his feet.

“What are you doing?” I whispered before clearing my throat and trying again. “You’re supposed to be at The Wet Lotus.”

“What the fuck are these, Mei Zhen?” His voice was a low rumble like thunder on the horizon, promising the kind of storm you immediately took shelter from.

Only my shelter was his home, and he was currently sitting on my bed.

I bit my lip as I tried to think about a feasible lie, and then, failing that, I shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? I tried to write you.”

“‘I miss you,” he started to read, voice tight, and my knees almost gave out so I braced myself against the wall. “‘In Chinese or English, there are no words to properly express just how much missing you eats at me. It’s like your absence is a rabid animal, taking huge chunks out of me whenever I’m vulnerable, nipping at my heels just when I think I might be getting too close to some kind of new okay.’”

He looked up, piercing me with that gorgeous blue-green eyed stare. I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried again. “I wasn’t trying to hide it that I missed you.”

“From day one,” he noted, shaking the letter in his hand as if it was a live thing he wanted to strangle. “Why the fuck didn’t you send them?”

“Idid,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “Notice the ‘return to sender’?”

“You didn’t send shit for a year and a half,” he retorted. “Why didn’t you send these right away? Why weren’t youtherevisitin’ me? You fuckin’ disappeared on us!”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I murmured, so weary I felt ancient.

“Of course, it fuckin’ matters now,” he roared, standing up to toss the letter to the floor with the others. His fist thumped against his chest over his heart as he glowered at me. “You think that Kang’s side was the only one you cut into that night at Turner Farm? I still fuckin’ bleed from that wound. It never healed right, and the moment I saw you in the hospital again, it was like bein’ cut open all over again. You got the means to heal that hurt, and you’re tellin’ me you won’t?”

“Are you actually telling me that knowing why I abandoned you would clean all that bad blood away?” I asked with a skeptical scoff. “You’re a stubborn old tiger, and you know how to hold a mean grudge.”

“When it’s deserved,” he retorted, stalking forward slowly, his big body rolling and clenching sensuously beneath his thin tee and worn jeans like the gait of a jungle cat.

I sucked in a quick, quivering breath as he gripped my chin and curled his back to bring his gaze down to mine.

“You tellin’ me, the fierce Mei Zhen is too cowardly to confess her sins?”

“Fuck you,” I spat, backed into a corner and feral.

It was too much being confronted with this after I was already raw from my conversation with Cleo. His anger confused my body, made my nipples bead and thighs clench because it reminded me of the animal savagery he’d fucked me with in the motel. Suddenly, I was panting, and my hands were forming claws to rake over his pectorals, over the teeth marks I’d already left behind in his flesh. A warning and a dare.

Come at me, everything in me screamed,you want my penance, then fucking take it from me.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when he read that in me because Axe-Man had always been good with languages and the vocabulary of Mei was no exception.

“Do I need to threaten to turn you over my knee again to get some honesty from you?” he practically purred, crowding me against the wall beside the door. Without breaking my gaze, he reached out with one hand and carefully closed it around my throat. “You want me to fuck the truth outta you, don’t you?”

“I thought you weren’t going to touch me again?” I taunted even though I knew I was playing with fire. As if that wasn’t enough, I lunged up on my tiptoes to snap at his lower lip, biting it sharply enough to rend the thin skin. A little bead of blood welled like a garnet gemstone on his mouth, and without thinking, I lapped it up and hummed at the sweet metallic taste of him on my tongue. “I thought you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

The truth was, I ached for the burn, for the danger of all that strength and ferocity under my hands and mouth again. Something about his viciousness was honest and made me feel cared for in a way that was elemental. He wanted me despite everything between us, and it made me feelpowerful.

Axe-Man’s eyes were black with lust as he ran his rough thumb up and down the column of my throat where my pulse thrummed. His body was a looming threat curved over mine, our noses almost touching, but I vibrated with something more than anger and fear.

“I can’t. Even though you stabbed me through the fuckin’ heart, it can’t fuckin’ forget how to care about you. Even with my blood on your teeth, I can’t fight the mad urge to kiss you. Maybe especially with my blood on your teeth, your little claws in my chest. I’ve always had the bad habit of wantin’ what wasn’t good for me.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you. Not again,” I amended breathlessly.

“You’re still a fuckin’ liar with a mouth full of sharp teeth and secrets. I hate you, Mei, but I got this madness in me that wants you anyway. This anger I got wants to take pieces outta you with my words and my teeth. Bruises you ’cause I want you to hurt and mark you ’cause some damn dumb part of me remembers what it was like when you were mine.”