The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

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The words were a breathless, panicked jumble. But he didn’t seem to hear them. He wrapped his hands around her neck and lowered his face until she could feel his breath on her skin. His mouth opened, and his teeth gently closed over her cheek. She heard the involuntary mewling in her throat. Her body was stiff as a board as she waited for him to bite down. To rip, tear…maim. Destroy.

He would. He wanted to. She knew it. She had seen it in his eyes, sensed it in the leashed fury of his movements. He was going to kill her. But first he would hurt her. He would make her regret defying him.

She thought of her parents, of Faith. Of the beautiful niece she would never see grow up. She regretted the life that she could have lived, the love she should have found…She didn’t want it to end. Not now. Not like this.

She managed to get both hands between their bodies, braced her palms against his chest, and shoved him as hard as she could. The move surprised him, and he reared up. She used his momentary confusion to try and wriggle out from beneath him.

But he recovered too quickly. Compressing his thighs over hers to prevent her from getting away, his hands clamped around her neck.

“Let go of me!” she demanded of him. Tears seeped down her face and soaked into the pillow beneath her head. He had an erection. He always had an erection when he hurt her. And she hated it! Hated him.

“You stole from me, Charity,” he said, from between gritted teeth. “You stole my child from me.”

“F-fuck you, Blaine!” She hurled at him, finding her voice, her defiance, her bravery now. When it was too late. “I stole nothing from you. I would die before I give you a child.”

He reached for a pillow, and the last thing she saw, before he covered her face with it, was his lips parting on a thin, menacing smile.

The shroud of darkness was accompanied by the terrifying sensation of being smothered. Each excruciating exhalation left her with even less air in her lungs. And while she fought to breathe, he was right there, intimately close…applying ever more pressure.

“Oh, don’t worry, my love. I can promise you this…Tonight’s the night you die, Charity.”

She gasped and redoubled her efforts, seeing the absolute truth in his eyes.

“I fought him so hard. I knew he meant what he’d said.” Her cheeks were wet, and she wiped the moisture from them with her sleeve. “And I didn’t want to die. I was so desperate to live. But in the end, he was too strong for me. He didn’t even hurt me. Didn’t hit me. Or bruise me or bite me. He knew exactly what he was doing and that meant leaving no questionable marks on me for the police to investigate. He left a half empty bottle of pills next to the bed. I think he wanted people to assume that I’d committed suicide and that, devoted to the end, he had taken his own life because he couldn’t live without me. It wasn’t entirely rational, an autopsy would have revealed the truth. But he was beyond reason at that point. I have no idea how he had missed the fact that I was still breathing…but I’m eternally grateful that he did.”

Mile’s breathing was ragged, his hand had long since dropped from hers. She could feel the tautness in his body, and she tensed in reaction to it.

“I-I…” He couldn’t seem to find the words he needed to complete that thought, and Charity turned her head to look at him. She couldn’t see much more than his harsh profile as he stared out into the blackness.

“Miles…”

He shook his head and interrupted her. “I’m sorry, Charity. I-I just need a moment. It’s…I—”

He surged to his feet and scooped Stormy from his lap in one motion.

“Just…” He handed the dog to her and didn’t finish his thought, instead he stalked away and slammed into the house. Charity hugged the trembling dog close and contemplated the closed patio door for a long moment, before getting up and following him inside. She put Stormy down, and the dog scrabbled off toward Miles’s bedroom.

Charity hesitated for a moment and slowly followed Stormy down the darkened hallway to his room.

She found him in the en suite, hands braced on the sink, head bowed, and shoulders shaking.

“Miles?” Her voice was low, questioning. But he kept his stare directed at the porcelain sink.

She lay a tentative hand on his shoulder. His whole body was vibrating with suppressed emotion.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. He made a soft, anguished sound in the back of his throat and lifted his eyes to meet hers. The expression in them staggered her. He looked wrecked and, as she watched, that harsh, masculine face dissolved into absolute despair. Tears welled up in his beautiful eyes, reddening the whites and spiking his lashes. Charity could tell from the brutally clenched jaw, the gritted teeth, and muscle jumping in his temple, how hard he was struggling to keep those tears at bay…But he lost that valiant fight when she palmed his taut jaw. His reactionary flinch from her touch, dislodged the fiercely battled tears and sent them streaking down his lean cheeks.

“Fuck,” he groaned, and leaned into her touch, reaching up to capture her hand against his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t want to make this about me. But fuck, Charity, it kills me to hear what he did to you.”

“I know.”

“I feel violent. Furious…and I don’t want to scare you.”

“You never could.”

She stepped closer, and he enfolded her in his arms, wrapping himself around her, making her feel safe and protected.