Born, Madly (Darkly, Madly 2)

“Not about me,” she stresses. “Don’t ever question me. I’m risking just as much as you are, Grayson.”

“Noted, doc.” She’s fire and life. She brings color to my world. I’ve been waiting a lifetime for her without even realizing she was the missing part of me. Flesh of my flesh. “But you’re still dangerous.”

Her silky lips find my neck. Her mouth opens to taste me, her tongue slips over my skin, and a hard shiver rocks through me. “That didn’t stop you before.” Her breathy declaration heats my skin.

I soar under her touch. “It won’t ever.”

“Grayson,” she says, her voice filled with raw emotion. “I found a way for us to be together.”

My body tenses. “It’s not time.”

The music changes beat, a provocative melody, forcing a shift in atmosphere around us. London pushes onto her toes and links her arms around my neck, speaking into my ear. “You have to trust me.” Her body sways, and I follow her lead as she guides us off the wall and into a slow dance. “You gave me a choice once, now I’m offering you one.”

Her body is so delicate in my hands; I could break her. But I let her lead. “Down the rabbit hole,” I say, remembering the moment on the hospital roof when I offered her my hand.

She lays her head against my chest. “Together.”

The music swells, taking me with it. Ascending higher as I tuck her close, knowing that I’ll never be able to leave her now. The choices have always been London’s to make. I might’ve designed the traps, but she guided us there.

She guided me here…

She traces something soft along my throat, and when she pulls back, I glimpse the dried clover. A smile curls my lips. The gift I left for her in her childhood dungeon. I gave her one small clue, and she took that frail hint and used it to direct my course.

When she next appeared on the news, she had the clover pinned to her suit. In a newspaper article, she was shown distraught, gripping a blue bar napkin in her hands. To anyone else, these objects would be meaningless. But to me, they didn’t belong.

Sometimes it’s what’s wrong with the picture that captures our attention. And London and I…we’re very, very wrong. A portrait of the wicked and sinful. She’s the artist and I’m her canvas, waiting for her to complete our story.

Then recently, a broadcast on the Internet revealed the date: Her announcement that Agent Nelson was traveling to Mize for the reveal of the dead girls’ identities.

I followed her story like she knew I would. I followed her to the Blue Clover because we belong together.

And I’ve waited long enough.

While she was unveiling the horror story of her life to the world, unearthing dead girls from the soil of her childhood home, I was pretty diligent myself, setting up false leads across the country. Dropping little breadcrumbs to keep the FBI taskforce busy.

We’ll come back to that later.

Right now, I’m famished. Starved to taste what I’ve been denying myself for far too long.

London pushes close to my ear. “You’re hungry,” she whispers. “Ravenous. I can feel your need.”

Teeth gritted, I grab the skimpy material of her skirt and bunch it in my fists. I find her eyes—those bottomless browns shimmering with gold—before I take her mouth. I groan into the kiss, the taste of her a drug injected into my deprived system.

The music returns with a roaring crash to my senses. I’m drunk on her and swaying beneath her spell. Only one other indulgence compares to this sublime feeling, and I’m unable to deny myself any longer. I break away and turn her around to face the club.

Securing my hands to her hips, I bring her back against my chest. My eyes shutter as she snakes an arm around my neck, welding her body along mine.

I dip my head low and whisper, “Choose.”

Enticing me isn’t enough. London thinks she’s going to poke the beast with no implications…let’s test that theory. If she’s ready to bring the manhunt to an end, then she’s ready to take lives.

I feel the quake roll over her body. “You don’t think I’m ready.”

“I think if I’ve come all this way, placing myself right in the path of bloodhounds, you’re going to prove it.”

“Didn’t I prove it when I dunked a pedophile in a tank of acid?” Her words seethe with righteous anger.

I smile at the memory of our first kill. “Your hands still look clean,” I say in a hushed tone. “I want to see them dirty. I want to see them red.”