by Lana Sky
“Whatever you experienced just now, I was not behind it.” The certainty in his tone robs me of rage before I’m ready.
“Liar.” I try hitting him again, but I miss. The world spins and I wind up clutching his forearm instead. Too tightly.
When he loosens his grip on my wrist, I expect him to shove me off. He finds my shoulder instead and loops his fingers around the sleeve of my T-shirt, keeping me upright.
“Trust me, Ms. Thorne. When I come for you, I won’t have to break down your door.”
I want him to be lying. Which makes no damn sense. He shouldn’t be preferable to any other monster hunting me. Desperate to prove it, I latch onto the one thing his sudden arrival has made clear.
“How many bugs do you have hidden in my room?” My lips nearly graze his chest with every motion. He’s too close. But he displays no intention to back away.
“Three. The one by your bed was the clearest, however.”
“Well, I hope you enjoyed your final show,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
He says nothing. Oh? I rake my gaze upward and find his expression…pinched? Unnaturally stiff jawline. Furrowed brow. He listened to my private show, all right.
And I should feel disgusted by that. Horribly violated.
Not…curious.
“Let go of me.”
He does, but for some reason, my hand still grips him tightly.
“I want you to get the hell out—”
Darkness. Without warning, the lights shut off. A second later, lightning flashes.
And I’m miles away.
Are you afraid of the dark, Juliana? Think they’ll find you soon?
Let’s play another game.
“What’s wrong?”
That voice was too deep. Not Simon. I blink, panting as I interpret my surroundings. Dark…but warm. No trees. I’m in my apartment again, but the man with me now shouldn’t sound so damn concerned. And I shouldn’t be clinging to him like a frightened child. I make a concerted effort to loosen my grip, but his hand remains on my shoulder, imparting just enough pressure to steady me.
“Power’s out.” I intend to sound unaffected. Not breathless. Blackouts were always the worst trigger. Sudden. Unexpected. After a summer of violent storms, Daddy had to buy a backup generator just to keep me—
“The outage must be a result of the storm,” Damien replies smoothly. “There is a generator.”
As if the building heeds his request, the power whirls back to life. My collection of lights would usually inspire relief. Not alarm. Apart from a voyeuristic asshole listening in, no one ever sees me like this. Panting. Eyes watering. Shaking.
“You should leave now,” I croak, my obligatory rebuff. I don’t sense any indication from him that he intends to. Yet, anyway.
Apparently, Damien has something he wants to say. I decide to beat him to the punch.
“Is that how you spy on me?” I’m eyeing the device attached to his left ear, barely noticeable against his dark hair. Only after a second do I realize he can’t interpret the gesture. “With what’s in your ear?”
He boldly fingers the device and lifts his shoulders in the semblance of a shrug. “I have a direct feed at another location.” Smart man for not saying where. “This helps to supplement what I prefer to call oppositional research.”
“Bullshit.” Something about how he said “direct feed” makes me swallow hard. “You mean you have a dedicated room where you go to spy on me?”
The boring life of Juliana Thorne in HD surround sound, perhaps? Who’s the dull one now?
“It’s only recently that I’ve taken to keeping a more…consistent vigilance,” he admits.
Consistent. My lungs promptly deflate of air. “Oh?” I wonder innocently, aware of how a muscle in his arm jerks beneath my touch. “How recently? As recently as three days ago?” I should leave it at that, but my lips won’t stop moving. “When I gave you a taste of what you’ll never, ever have?”
Bingo. He can’t hide how his throat lurches, but an answering flutter in my chest alarms me far more. I flex my palm, intending to push away from him.
“Well, now that you mention it…” His fingers seize my chin, tilting it. At the same time, he lowers his face, bringing his mouth near my ear as if he memorized the distance. Close enough for his breath to fan my earlobe with every grated word. “It was as recently as three days ago,” he concedes, “when you fingered yourself to the tune of my name. Or pretended to, perhaps…”
My cheeks flame. No one makes everyday words sound as vulgar as he does. Fingered. My own twitch against him. The last part of that statement, however, has my mouth contorting into a frown.
“Pretended?”
He can’t see what I’m doing—I know that. Regardless, his nostrils flare anyway as if seeking every trace of the fingertips I parade beneath his nose.
“I definitely wasn’t pretending.” Only belatedly do I realize that statement could encompass everything. To the tune of my name. “About the f-fingering part.”
“Oh?”
I shouldn’t be able to track that shadow that falls across his features, even with the blindfold. He’s dangerously easy to read in this moment. Tense. Waiting for something. A cue to leave, I think. And, God, I should give it to him. Get the hell out—but he’s the one who started this game, and I can’t resist taking one final cheap shot.
“Oh yes.”
He tenses even before I hover my thumb over his lips. They’re surprisingly pink. Soft. The slightest pressure is all it takes to make an indentation—and have him sharply inhale.
“If only you knew.” I draw my hand away, fully intending to kick him out. I don’t expect him to cup my face in retaliation, his thumb expertly finding my own mouth. I inhale raggedly, waiting.
He should leave it at that: a sleazy tit-for-tat. He shouldn’t lean closer. I’m rendered motionless even though I have plenty of warning to turn my face. Run. Move. Something.
His mouth finds mine easily, separated only by the width of his thumb. “Oh, I would like to know,” he breathes against my parted lips. “I’d very much like to know why you panted my name.”
He sounds angry. Insulted. Intrigued.
Enough. I shove against him. At the same time, he lowers his hand and covers the distance between us.
Preemptively, I call his bluff. “You wouldn’t dare—”
Our lips meet. Stiffen. Deepen their contact.
It’s not a kiss. Even as his tongue swipes my mouth open and invades without warning. It’s a battle of wits.
And I’m woefully unmatched.
He shouldn’t taste sweet. Like cognac mixed with something fruity. Poisonous fruit. He rams his flavor into me like he’s forcing me to swallow every illicit drop. He shouldn’t feel so damn soft. My body shouldn’t catch fire.
I shouldn’t extend this.
He slides his hand around to the back of my throat, holding me captive as he steps in closer, using his height advantage as a weapon to knock me off-balance. My hands fly to his shoulders, clutching at the fabric of his suit jacket. Another searing taste of him unnerves me, deeper than the first. Another.
“S-stop.” I break away and find myself stumbling in the direction of my room.
He follows me, eerily steady.
“Get out,” I snap.
“Is that what you really want?”
Yes. My tongue struggles to push the word out as thunder rumbles ominously.
Days ago, I could face the threat of a simple storm alone without pacing before the row of windows in my living room or anxiously watching the clouds approach. I’d dread the thunder, but wine was my only defense—I had nothing to compare the loneliness to.
Now, when the first few drops of rain speckle the glass, there’s no bottle within reach. Lightning flickers closer with every strike, heralding the terror of my past.
The woods.
Leslie.
His voice twisted its way through my skull.
Simo
n says…
“Juliana.”
I whirl around, heart in my throat. “What?”
“You’re afraid.” He cocks his head, drawing attention to my current state. How I stand. How I breathe. How my gait wavers with every step I take over the carpet. “You’re uneasy…” His posture stiffens and I imagine him listening for intruders in the shadows. When his search turns up nothing, he frowns. “Tell me why.”
My teeth skewer my lower lip, trapping a frustrated hiss. I’m tearing my fingers through my hair like a madwoman. When lightning strikes, I jump.
“Fine.” Teeth gritted, I turn from the window and find him seated, his posture erect. “Storms tend to usher bad men into my life.” What I intend to be a cruel jab falls flat. I’m the one who winds up flinching.
“Bad men.” He parrots the phrase emotionlessly. “Explain.”
I force out a breath and turn on my heel. I’m treading the same path he was earlier. A ruthless trek from one corner of my living room to the other. My bare toes tingle as if sensing the steps he took, large and purposeful. Ugh. I shake my head to clear the thought. No use. The tingle spreads up my legs and I’m walking faster.
“I know you dug into my past,” I say over my shoulder. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
“I’m aware of what happened to you as a child,” he admits, phrasing the words with subtle care. “You were attacked in the woods by an unknown assailant. Your young friend was killed in front of you and you weren’t found until over forty-eight hours later, on the verge of death. The murderer was never caught and some insensitive reporters sensationally suspected that you, an eight-year-old girl, may have been the culprit all along. Jealousy, they claimed.”
I stare from the window, seeking refuge in the howling storm. I don’t know why his knowledge shocks me so much. Of course he’s done his research. Still. When most people discover my past, out come the kid gloves and coddling. Few would dare confront me about it in clinical, stark terms.
Fewer care to listen.
“I am aware of the published accounts, anyway,” he adds. “I assume thunderstorms make you relive it.”
I swallow hard. “Yes.” God, I sound so damn pathetic. He does this to me. “It stormed that night…”
“When it happened?”
Forest. Cold. The memories threaten to unfold, but I bite them back. “How did you know someone was breaking in?”
“Intuition.”
My eyes widen. “Are you magic in addition to blind—”
“You’re stalling,” he interjects. “What is it about the storms that makes you so afraid?”
My eyebrows furrow. “Desperate for a new emotion to paint, Mr. Villa?”
“No.”
I shrug off the genuine curiosity in his tone. “They—” Lightning flickers across the horizon, and I lick my lips with a nervous flit of my tongue. “They make me feel…alone.”
Alone.
Trapped.
Helpless.
Hopeless.
Lost.
“It was storming when you went missing,” he deduces.
“Yes.” Lightning flashes again and my apartment fades.
Gnarled trees loomed overhead, obscuring an indigo sky. Simon was watching. Hunting. Prowling.
Come out, come out, Juliana.
Cologne. My nostrils flare, chasing that scent, even as terror knots in my stomach. The more I breathe him in, the faster the forest recedes. Thunder bellows, rattling the walls, but I’m still here.
“When we went missing—when I went missing…my parents were too high and too drunk to notice for two damn days. I was hiding in a ditch in a hillside and I didn’t move for so long my legs had grown numb. I couldn’t even walk. A jogger found me, but they thought I was—” I break off, frowning, before I realize why.
Three-and-a-half whole sentences without interruption or a kind voice urging me to state how I “feel.” A world record. He doesn’t even press for the juicy details. What did he do to you? What did you see? Was he even real?
I almost wish he would. Or that I was brave enough to seek out a bottle of wine instead of him. Even alcohol can’t loosen my tongue this much.
“Do you know what that’s like? Hearing the world rage around you, bellowing and howling and knowing you’re all alone. Your name isn’t the one being shouted. No one can hear you screaming…”
I’ve said too much. My face feels strange. I reach up and find that my cheeks are wet.
“Is that when you received the scars on your hip?”
I glance at him sharply. He must have read my file. I can imagine how the crisp report described it: Juliana, age eight, found with a seven-inch laceration on left thigh. Has he known the answer all along and merely feigned his confusion before? Looking at him, I can’t tell. He’s fully focused on me, his head inclined, listening. Just listening.
“Y-yes.” My fingers drift to my hip, tracing the old scar over the fabric of my pajama pants.
“And, afterward, you were adopted by Heyworth Thorne.”
It’s like he’s feeding me lines from a fairytale I know by heart, skeptical but patient.
“Yes.” I return to my view of the city and flatten my palms against the glass, framing the world outstretched below me. “You may think he’s a racist, or incompetent, or whatever, but he saved my life. He saved me. I used to dream of what it would be like to live outside of the trailer park, you know? Never in a million years could I envision a place like this. A life like this.”
“Did you know what he did before becoming a judge?”
“A defense attorney,” I say. “It’s why he accepted the appointment to the bench in the first place. He was tired of defending criminals. He wanted to put them away.”
“And he told you this?” Damien wonders. I don’t like his tone; it’s too damn soft. “Interesting.”
I sigh in lieu of dissecting his motives and watch my breath fog the glass. The silvery cloud obscures a nearby building, transforming it into a mass of yellow dots and inky darkness.
“Even now, I hate the rain,” I murmur, the icing on my sordid little tale. “I really do.”
“I’ve always enjoyed it,” the man behind me confesses. He sounds too casual. As if sitting on my couch, discussing the weather is the most natural act in the world. As if this—us—is natural. “I used to enjoy watching the sky light up and feeling the moisture on my skin.”
His use of past tense sticks out. I glance at him again, focusing on the blindfold. “And now?”
“I enjoy listening to it.” His lips twitch into something not quite a smile, but not a frown, either. Wistful. “Someone told me once that every lash of thunder and drop of rain plays like music. A unique song only heard in that exact moment. Fleeting and never to be experienced by anyone again.”
“That’s quite a deep musing coming from a psychopath,” I blurt. Surprisingly, he doesn’t bite back. “Are you a musician as well?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Without my sight, I will never see a finished piece of my artwork. But, as you are aware, my hearing is quite intact. Not a second would go by without my hearing the flaws in any piece I created. Therefore, I’d create nothing.”
So, he’s a perfectionist and an accomplished stalker.
“Do you miss it? Seeing.”
“No,” he says without an ounce of hesitation. “I don’t.”
“Because you can hear just fine,” I say pointedly. “In fact…”
I barge through my bedroom door and switch the light on. Three days have reduced my bed to a crumpled mass of sheets. My closet door is partially open with clothes thrown haphazardly on the floor of it. I look back and find Damien paused near the threshold, frowning as his foot warily taps my discarded heel.
Without thinking, I cross to him and kick the shoe from his path. Why? I have no damn idea.
“Where?” I demand, glancing around the room. “Where are the rest of your little toys?”
If I were a psychop
ath, where would I hide my secret listening devices? The drapes? Behind the potted plant in the corner? I make a show of loudly checking both places but come up short.
“Where?” I demand while marching toward him. “Maybe I’ll even let you keep one. Poor man. I’d hate to deny you of your sole entertainment—”
“Ah, but I don’t want to hear a recording of you moaning, Ms. Thorne.”
My breath catches. He sounds too damn…heated. “Oh?” I croak. “Fine, then. Tell me where the other bugs are.”
“No.” He easily swats away the request and takes a step closer, homing in on my position. “But I’d much rather hear you moan in person.”
I blink. Breathe. He’s taunting me. “As if.”
He takes another step and I’m frozen in place. Deliberately, he reaches for me, stroking his fingers along the side of my cheek. Then he cups the side of it. Deep down, I know that he’s giving me all the time in the world to run. I don’t. Not even when his lips claim mine once again.
I shiver as he tugs me forward. His tongue rims my mouth, a teasing request for entrance.
“S-stop,” I croak without pulling away. I inhale his laugh directly.
“Do you really want me to?”
Yes. I want him to stop. But like a true madman, he doesn’t give me the chance to demand it. His fingers trace my throat in a fiery caress, traveling down to my collar. Lower…lower still. My nipples sharpen in tense anticipation as he skims the cotton of my shirt. Pressing hard enough to sense but nowhere near hard enough to really feel. My mind plays a devious game of remembering how he felt after he’d drugged me. Raw heat over paralyzed muscles. I’m anything but frozen now.
My chest flutters. My toes sink into the carpet beneath them, desperate for leverage.
“You should leave, Mr. Villa,” I breathe, hating how fragile my voice sounds in comparison to the muted storm raging outside.
He doesn’t.
He steps forward, jarring my precarious balance. I assume he miscalculated my position for once—but no. He moves again, deliberately ramming his chest into mine, hard enough to jar back. Back. Back. My knees strike the base of my bed. Another firm nudge from him urges me onto it.
I stare up at him, panting. No matter how hard I try, I can’t find enough air to command him to stop. And he knows too much—from the layout of my room, apparently, down to just how my body would fall when shoved onto my bed from this position. One of his hands captures my upper thigh and nothing in the world could prepare me for the cruel mixture of sensations jolting through my body. Fire. Ice. Slowly, his other hand finds my opposite thigh. He tugs, and my legs part, opening enough space for him to step in between.