Page 19 of From Hell

My tongue unconsciously sweeps along my bottom lip as I shoot him a skeptical look. I place my half-drunk pint on the table and give him a friendly smile. “I should probably head off. I have an appointment over to the hospital.”

“Before you go,” Jaxon’s tone is smooth as silk, a seductive undertone that sends a shiver down my spine. “You haven’t told me what actually drove you away,” he presses, his deep voice almost caressing my senses. “I don’t believe for one second that your parents wanted you to drop out of medical school.”

I shrug, trying to mask my unease. “There’s nothing worth mentioning.”

“No intriguing story?” His gaze locks onto mine, his silvery gray eyes twinkling like mirrors, reflecting my apprehension.

“No story, I’m afraid. I’m very boring.”Unlike the secrets that you are hiding.

“Oh, I doubt that. You are far from boring, Laine. I want to know a lot of things about you.”

“Like what?” I muse.

“Like, how did you get that scar?”

Staring long enough into his eyes, the twinkle falters, and a cold, calculated shadow dances in their depths. It’s the same unsettling look he gave me in the hospital through the door window, a look that draws me in like a whirlpool, chilling the warm, cozy atmosphere.

I swallow hard, a knot forming in my throat. “Scar?” I repeat, my voice trembling. Nervously, I drag a strand of my hair around my shoulders, lowering my chin to cover it.

Jaxon’s cool and calculating gaze remains fixed on me, though his eyes seem to gleam. “The one on your neck that you’re hiding from me? Was it the Ripper? Did he do that to you?”

The air in the room grows thin. All the breath seems to leave my body. “Where did you hear that?”

His lips curl, but the expression has no warmth. “Tell me…” he insists, his voice laced with an unsettling curiosity, “What was it like?”

“What waswhatlike?” My response is sharp and choked.

“Having your life taken away from you.”

“How—how could you ask me that?” My voice is barely above a whisper.

He pauses and leans in closer, his demeanor predatory. “I’m a heart surgeon,” he says softly. “I often hold life and death in my hands. It intrigues me when I meet someone who has looked death in the eyes, escaped, and won. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like not to save a life when I’m in theatre. All I have to do is hold my hands up. Nothing else.”

Shock ripples through me. The things he’s saying out loud no one should ever say, even if you think it. But late at night, when I’m planning to end a life of my own, thoughts about letting someone die rather than live echo through me. Only if they deserve it, of course. “You swore the Hippocratic oath,” I say, because what do you say to that?

Same. Me too. If I’m completely honest, it’s why I dropped out.

He laughs. “Did I? I guess I did.” His smile isn’t pretty despite his angelic face, and a shiver races through my bones, unnatural and unsettling.

The pub around us suddenly feels too small. Without thinking, I wrap my arms around myself, wanting to be anywhere else.The sound of everyone going about their liquid lunches seems so far away.

“Sometimes I forget that we’re supposed to be good. Don’t you?”

I was right. He hasn’t changed. The sociopath who broke Addison’s hands and couldn’t care less is still there, lurking beneath the surface. Only now, I have a reason to fear his lack of empathy—when it’s aimed at me.

When he’s digging too close to the truth.

The darkness that drew me in at university hasn’t gone away, and the fantasies I have, letting all my ugly thoughts and desires spill out into the open for him to pick at and play with, lodge deep in my throat. I scare myself sometimes with what I think.

And with what I’ve done.

Heat spills through me, making me feel dizzy. The lightest flame licks at my insides like an illicit drug, speeding my heart up. Fluttering faster and faster.

As Jaxon looks at me like a rabid wolf, running his thumb across his bottom lip, his eyes alight with those dancing shadows….

I want him to kiss me.

Fuck.