"Is it because you can? Is it a…a..." I blink, "a debt of some kind?"
He stills.
"My father. This is about how he betrayed the Mafia, right? You’re one of them?"
All expression is wiped clean of his face, and I know then I am right. My past… Why does it always catch up with me? You can run, but you can never hide.
"Tick-tock, Beauty." He angles his body and his shoulders shut out the sight of the sun, the dawn skies, the horizon, the city in the distance, the whisper of the grass, the trees, the rustle of the leaves... All of it fades, and leaves me and him. Us. Run.
"Five," he jerks his chin, straightens the cuffs of his sleeves.
My knees wobble.
"Four."
My heart hammers in my chest. I should go. Leave. But my feet are welded to this earth. This piece of land where we first met. What am I, but a speck in the larger scheme of things? To be hurt. To be forgotten. To be brought to the edge of climax and taken without an ounce of retribution. To be punished... By him.
"Three." He thrusts out his chest, widens his stance, every muscle in his body relaxed. "Two."
I swallow. The pulse beats at my temples. My blood thrums.
"One."
Michael
"Go."
She pivots and races down the slope. The fabric of her dress streams behind her, scarlet in the blue morning. Her scent, lushly feminine with silver moonflowers, clings to my nose, then recedes. I reach forward, thrust out my chin, sniff the air, but there’s only the green scent of dawn. She stumbles and I jump forward. Pause when she straightens. Wait. Wait. Give her a lead. Let her think she has almost escaped, that she’s gotten the better of me… As if. I clench my fists at my sides, force myself to relax. Wait. Wait. She reaches the bottom of the incline, turns. I surge forward. One foot in front of the other, my heels dig into the grassy surface as mud flies up, clinging to the edges of my £4000 Italian pants. Like I care? Plenty more where that came from. An entire walk-in closet full of tailor-made clothes, to suit every occasion, with every possible accessory needed by a man in my position to impress… Everything, except the one thing that I have coveted from the first time I had laid eyes on her. Sitting there on the grassy slope, unshed tears in her eyes, and reciting… Byron? For hell’s sake. Of all the poet’s in the world, she had to choose the Lord of Darkness.
I huff. All a ploy. Clearly, she’d known I was sitting near her… No, not possible. I had walked toward her and she hadn’t stirred, hadn’t been aware. Yeah, I am that good. I’ve been known to slice a man from ear to ear while he was awake and fully aware. Alive one second, dead the next. That’s how it is in my world. You want it, you take it. And I… I want her.
I increase my pace, eat up the distance between myself and the girl… That’s all she is. A slip of a thing, a slim blur of motion. Beauty in hiding. A diamond in the rough, waiting for me to get my hands on her, polish her, show her what it means to be…dead. She is dead. That’s why I am here.
Her skirts flash behind her, exposing a creamy length of thigh. My groin hardens; my legs wobble. I lurch over a bump in the ground. The hell? I right myself, leap forward, inching closer, closer. She reaches a curve in the path, disappears out of sight. My heart hammers in my chest. I will not lose her, will not. Here, Beauty, come to Daddy. The wind whistles past my ears. I pump my legs, lengthen my strides, turn the corner. There’s no one there, huh?
My heart hammers, the blood pounds at my wrists and my temples, and adrenaline thrums through my veins. I slow down, come to a stop. Scan the clearing.
The hairs on my forearms prickle. She’s here. Not far. Where? Where is she? I prowl across, to the edge of the clearing, under the tree with its spreading branches. When I get my hands on you, Beauty, I’ll spread your legs like the pages of a poem. Dip into your honeyed sweetness, like a quill into an inkwell; drag my aching shaft across that melting, weeping entrance. My balls throb. My groin tightens. The crack of a branch above shivers across my stretched nerve endings. Instinctively, I swoop forward, hold out my arms. A blur of red, dark blonde hair, skirt swept up in a gust of breeze. She drops into my arms and I close my grasp around the trembling, squirming mass of precious humanity. I cradle her close to my chest, heart beating thud-thud-thud, overwhelming any other thought.
Mine. All mine. The hell is wrong with me? She wriggles her little body, and her curves slide across my forearms. My shoulders bunch and my fingers tingle. She kicks out with her legs and arches her back. Her breasts thrust up, the nipples outlined against the fabric of her jogging vest. She’d dared come out dressed like that…? In that scrap of fabric that barely covered her luscious flesh?
"Let me go." She whips her head toward me, her hair flowing around her shoulders, across her face. She blows it out of the way, "You monster, get away from me."
Anger drums at the backs of my eyes; desire tugs at my groin. The scent of her is sheer torture, something that I had dreamed of in the wee hours of twilight when dusk turned into night. She’s not real. Not the woman I think she is. She is my downfall. My sweet poison. The bitter medicine I must imbibe to cure the ills that plague my company.
"Fine." I lower my arms and she hits the
