Blyssfully Undone (The Blyss Trilogy 3)

I decide at this point I’m not taking any chances. She’s not going to escape me this time. I reset the alarm to lock us in using a different code. If I get some sleep tonight, it will be a miracle. When I turn around, I’m met with a hateful glare. My brows rise. What the hell did I do now? This is certainly a different emotion than what I’ve been given all day.

I take a step forward in her direction and she snaps.

“Is it your turn again to take me hostage? Locking me behind a steel door now, Travis? What’s in it for you this time? Hmm?” Intense sarcasm drips from her voice, and then she gets animated. “What?” she questions. “You want a piece of this too?” she asks, pointing her finger inward at her body while making wide, continuous circles over her torso, referring to her person.

“Did you get your little toy taken from you? Aww…the poor baby. You want it back?” she mocks as if she’s talking down to a kid, and then she turns into Jekyll, unleashing her fury on me.

“You want to fuck this? Tell me, Travis. What are your fetishes?” she air quotes with her fingers. “You tried to train me for Nick, but I don’t believe you’ve trained me for your very own proclivities. Do you have some toys floating around here that you want to give a whirl? Tell me…how can I please you, Sir, Master…which do you prefer?”

Lunacy has gotten ahold of her. I really just want to bust out laughing at her absurdities. I bite my cheek with force, trying to keep my own sanity in check. It’s been a long fucking day. I have never seen a more pissed-off Jules, but anger is good; it means she’s letting it out. I’ll take anything over her being a zombie, withdrawing into the abyss of nothingness. This? This I can handle.

“You can hate me all you want. I’m not going to let you go,” I simply state. “We’ve got a lot of shit to work out, and in the end, if you still want to walk away, so be it.”

“I want to walk away now,” she snarls. “Open that Godforsaken door now, Travis.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Amazingly, I feel calm. “When I feel you’ve healed enough, then I’ll let you be, but not until then.”

“You are nothing but one big lie! Everything you say, you do the opposite.” Then she stands to her full height, and in the calmest manner she can muster, she requests again, “Open that door now, please.”

Jules

“I’m sorry,” he replies, politely mocking my tone, “but that’s just not going to happen. I have a chance to save you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

My eyes turn wide, stricken with incredulous disbelief. “Is that what I am to you? A charity case?” My voice then screeches incrementally higher. “A fucking charity case?! I don’t need your fucking sympathy or your charity. You can shove that shit back up your ass.”

I make a break for the door, trying to punch in the numbers that I had memorized, but they don’t work. “Dammit!” I scream, pounding on the keypad. I’m so sick of being locked up. When I first stepped foot inside this bunker, I was starting to calm down. That was, until I heard the sound of Travis entering numbers into the keypad, locking us in.

“Open this damn door now!” I hiss through gritted teeth.

He grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around. I’m so furious I raise my hand to haul off and slap him, but he’s too quick. He catches my wrist just before my hand meets his face. I struggle against his strong grip, his fingers painfully digging into my skin. Before I can strike him with my other fist, he captures that one too. I can’t break free. I have so much rage radiating off me my upper lip twitches. He breathes in my face like a charging bull. Yeah, he’s pissed off something wicked, but his anger doesn’t faze me in the least.

“Let me go,” I hiss. He ignores me and pushes the weight of his body against mine, forcing my back to slam against the steel door, taking my breath away. He forcefully places my hands above my head, his eyes fierce with determination.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he barks in my face. “You are anything but a charity case to me.” I struggle again, not wanting to hear anything he has to say.

We’re in a standoff, each of us challenging the other with a set of narrowed eyes. The tension is just as thick and solid as the steel door I’m pressed against.

“Did you mean it?” he growls with a sneer.

“Did I mean what?” I spit back.