Page 18 of Phobia

She straightened, her chin lifting to disguise her shock. “Really?”

“Yeah.” I sniffed, the motes of dust in the air messing with my sinuses. Looking down at Katrina over my nose, I met her hopeful eyes. “I believe you’re overtired and horny and your imagination is getting the best of you.”

I’d always loved her scared for that reason. She was more impressionable and pliant. Her fear acted as her playbook. The harder her heart walloped, the faster my blood pressure surged. I was entranced by the enthralling, rhythmic beats of the organ keeping her alive. Hungry for a taste.

Her anger on the other hand… it turned those soft honey-brown orbs into dark pools that promised violence. Her lush lips pushed into a sneer as she raked her hair aggressively behind her ears. “You’re an asshole, Adam,” she snapped.

“But I’m your asshole,” I reminded, inclining my head, smirking down at her. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

She shook her head, storming from my side, the muscles in her back knitting together. “Shoulda stayed in Fall River,” she mumbled under her breath, creating more distance between us.

It didn’t matter how loud the music was in this place, or how many voices competed over hers, when she was nearby, my hearing became ultrasonic.

My futile attempts at levity fled the premises. She did not just fucking say that.

To eventhinkthat… it forced unbidden memories to resurface.

I snatched her wrist, her shoulder straining under the movement. I hauled her into me, a small puff of air leaving her lips at the unexpected motion as she collided against my hard body.

“Let go.”

“Never,” I hissed, the conversation too reminiscent of the one we’d had last November when I’d found her on a date with some clown who hadn’t deserved to even share the same oxygen as her.

I meant it then as much as I meant it now.

She stilled for a beat of a moment, but less than ten seconds later, she was fighting against me. But it was pointless. She was ensnared. Mine. Trapped.

Nothing more than a little rabbit who found herself cornered in a wolf’s den.

I wasn’t letting her go for shit.

The humor was absent from her eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each tense breath she took.

“What did you say under your breath, Little Rabbit?” I demanded, engaging in a standoff with her.

All she did was glower, attempting to burn a hole straight through my cranium. Her lips tugged a little to the right, pouting.

The prolonged silence threatened to choke us both, but neither one of us was going to give in to the other.

But I needed her to.

My heart drummed against my chest, threatening to punch right through the inked-cracked cavern in the center of my chest in offering to her. I’d had the chest piece tattooed a little after my ma passed, a few months after Katrina and I had broken up years ago.

It was to serve as a reminder to myself to remain heartless because people could hurt you if you let your guard down. The problem was, after years of being apart, once Katrina was physically back on my radar, I was consumed by her and unwilling to give her up to anyone—my brothers included.

The depths of my hatred and betrayal could never change that. They’d wielded that to their advantage.

She mended the abyss and undid everything I thought I knew about myself. She challenged me and became the life source of my strength, my beacon in a dark place.

Which was why she didn’t get to say shit like that to me. I didn’t care how pissed she was.

I didn’t give two shits if she hadn’t meant it or said it out of frustration. Anything that sounded close to her fantasizing about a life without me in it—without her here within reach of me—wasn’t something I’d ever allow her to entertain, in her head or out loud.

She could call me anything she wanted. An asshole, a sociopath. She could threaten to expose me, and I’d fuck the idea right out of her. I’d tattoo my name on her body just as I’d done hers on mine so she could never forget who she belonged to.

But she couldn’t leave me.

She wasn’t allowed to even insinuate it.