Oh god, he’s in my head…
He’s inside me.
Whispering a broken prayer, I beg Saint Benedict to protect me from the evil on my doorstep.
Outside, the monster continues to thump something hard against my door. Each thump terrorizing my already raw nerves.
“Chloe,” he says out loud with a low thrum in his voice. A thrum that causes my nipples to tighten and my core to clench on emptiness. “Open the door, let me come in.”
I want to. Oh God, how I want to…
But I swore I wouldn’t.
I swore on the cost of my soul.
Knees weakening, about to give out, I push away from the sink and stumble over to the bathtub.
I’m so out of it, I’m deliriously hoping somehow this little bit of distance will make it easier to endure his nearness.
Climbing into the tub, I sit down, pull my knees up to my chest, and yank the curtain shut.
“Open the door, Chloe,” he snarls in frustration.
The snarl should frighten me, but it does the exact opposite. Heat floods through me making me feel hot and feverish.
Squeezing my knees together, I notice my thighs are slicked with wetness.
Restarting the prayer of protection, I beg God and Saint Benedict to protect me from my own wanton, traitorous body.
“Hear me,” he murmurs soft and low. “Hear my words. I know you can hear me this way. My strengths, my gifts flow through our connection when we’re this close. Did the Order tell you that? Did they warn you of this temptation?”
No, I want to scream at him, but press my lips together and slap my hands over my ears instead.
No one warned me what it would be like to be near him. No one warned me that it would be a lust-filled, excruciating torture.
I’d give anything, anything, to relieve a little of this throb. This damn throb that won’t stop pounding through my veins.
“You hear me,” he continues in soft, soothing tones. “You hear me, and you hear the heartbeat of the gift I’ve brought to you.”
My mouth waters almost instantly at the reminder of the heartbeat outside my door. I was tuning it out, but now that he’s purposely drawn my attention it thunders in my ears.
Swallowing, I pray louder, trying to drown out the unwanted noise.
“Open. The. Door.” he demands, punctuating each word with a slam against the brick wall.
Pressing my hands harder against my ears, I shake my head back and forth.
I can’t.
No matter how badly I want to… I won’t.
“I’ve waited twenty years, Chloe,” he says with another loud slam.
Shuddering at the sound of a bone snapping, I drop my forehead to the top of my knees.
The sound should be repulsive… But something about it causes a jolt of excitement to shoot down my spine, straight to my needy core.
“Open. The. Door!” he shouts.
“No,” I whisper more to myself than him.
“Open the door,” he rasps a moment later like he’s growing weaker.
The fact that he seems to be close to giving up should fill me with relief, but for some reason it only hurts more.
“You can’t come in unless I invite you,” I whisper.
No matter how much my stupid pussy wants you to.
“Chloe, open this door!” he pleads. “I can’t protect you if you keep me out here all day!”
The thought of him leaving… of maybe never seeing him again fills me with so much distress it starts to piss me off.
“No,” I whisper and burst into angry tears. “Never.”
“Chloe,” he growls, and every muscle in my stomach clenches hard. The need, the want to experience that growl vibrating in my ear is so intense it hurts. “It took twenty years to track you down to this city, to this home. I have your scent. No matter where you go, I will find you.”
I hear the truth in his words and feel even more angry despair.
Is this it? Is my life over now? If I can’t run from him or escape him… what do I do?
“Don’t leave here until I come back after nightfall,” he demands.
Why? So he can torture me more?
“Fuck off,” I growl, hoping with all of my heart that he’ll do just that.
Once I sense him moving away, though, I cry harder.
Both relieved that he’s leaving and hating that he’s abandoning me like everyone else.
Thirteen
Asher
If I could curse whoever makes the rules in this forsaken world, I would. Not being able to enter Chloe’s house will be my undoing if I can’t find a way to get her out of there.
Damnable laws of the underworld.
Moving swiftly to the closest car I can find, I look around at my surroundings in the predawn light. It’s as bright as daytime to me, and my eyes begin to get that awful ache behind them.
The sun is my enemy this day, more so than ever before. It’s interceding in affairs it has no right to stop.