Page 14 of Vile Pucker

Absolutely not.

Never.

Gabriel was a danger.

And the next day I would tell Lucian so as I left. He could come if he wanted, but either way, I was leaving.

I willed myself to go to sleep.

You’re safe now.

But as I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, I heard a noise at the window and I whirled around, clutching the bedsheets.

It was Gabriel.

His arm was wrapped around the steel bar that thankfully stretched across the window and he wastrying to break in.

“Go away,” I said, my knees knocking together, trying to use a reasonable tone of voice. “As you can see, there is no way to get in. That’s solid steel.”

How was he hanging on out there? The walls looked practically sheer, with barely any handholds!

His eyes didn’t look human, burning a hole in my flesh.

But itmustbe only a trick of the night.

“Go open that door then,” he said.

And he didn’t stop, big hands twisting at that steel bar, testing its firmness.

When it didn’t budge, I saw Gabriel’s fingers move to the corners of the windows, scraping at the solid stone there.

Trying to find some entrance in.

“Why don’t you go see some of the women you brought with you?” I suggested, still trying to reason with him in my professional voice.

“Fuck that.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I think you know what I want with you.”

My blood ran cold.

“What? You must see this is not a rational way to behave! Now that you see you won’t get what you want hanging outside my window, you should go back to bed.”

God, if he could have fit through that hole, I didn’t want to think what he would have done to me.

“There’s no need to harass me when there are women willing to engage in carnal relations with you.”

I shivered as his sharp-edged glare seemed to peel off the outer layer of my skin.

“I don’t want them. I wantyou.”

“Why?”

“I like how you look. Better than anyone I’ve seen before. So either go open that door or wait until I’ve dug my way through this wall.”

All my scholarly knowledge had temporarily left my brain, all the techniques for heading off a psychopath’s fixation, and all that was left was a frantic panicky prey instinct.