Page 64 of As Long As You Kiss Me

“Jackson?” She twisted to see if it was him, but the arm held her firm.

“Guess again.”

Mason. She should have recognized his cologne. The smell made her sick as memories of him being cruel to her flooded her mind.

“How did you get in here?”

“I’ll be the one asking the questions tonight,” he snarled in her ear.

His breath was hot on her neck, and she shuddered.

“Get off me.” She fought against him, twisting and turning, using some of her self-defense tactics on Mason. She broke free of him for just a moment, but he only grabbed her again, pinning her arms to her sides.

She screamed and struggled to get her arms loose, but it was no use. He was too strong. She should have gone back to her self-defense class. She reached for her phone in her pocket, but he grabbed her hand and kept her away from it.

He reached into her pocket and removed it, tossing it across the room. “You won’t be calling anyone tonight. It’s just you and me here.”

She screamed at the top of her lungs, right in his ear.

“That’s not going to work,” he said. “No one will come for you. You’re all mine tonight. You made a mistake by turning me down. We’re meant to be together, and you can’t avoid fate.”

“Why are you here now?” she spat.

“I heard you were available again. Even Jackson didn’t want you. But don’t worry. I want you.”

This was one of those situations where the town gossips weren’t helpful to her.

“Mason. I don’t want you. Get it through your sick head.”

“You’ll learn to love me again. Don’t you worry about that.”

“No, I won’t. You were horrible to be married to.” She should probably just shut up instead of angering him further, but the words poured out of her mouth. “Those were the worst years of my life. You’re sick in the head, Mason. You need to go get help.”

“Stop talking,” he hissed in her ear. “You always did talk too much. Just running your mouth with pointless chatter that nobody cares about.”

“I hate you,” she spat. She bucked against him again. “Let me go.”

Something cold and metal pressed into her neck. “Keep talking, and you’ll regret it.”

A gasp caught in her throat, and she froze. What did he have? A knife? A gun? Maybe there was a way she could placate him and then get to her phone to call the police. She stayed still until his grip relaxed a bit. He kept the metal object to her neck, and it bit into her skin a little. A knife.

Why hadn’t she invited Jackson into the house? He could have taken Mason down. He was probably long gone by now.

“Please take the knife off my neck. I’ll behave, I promise.”

“How am I supposed to trust you after the way you’ve acted tonight?”

“I’m sorry for the way I acted before. You just caught me off guard. I’m sure there’s a way we can talk face to face about this like rational adults,” she said.

His grip on her loosened a bit. Good. That seemed to be working.

“Why did you leave me, Sully?”

She swallowed. How could she answer this without angering him further? “I was going through some personal issues.” That was true and vague enough that he might put some of the blame on her. He was pretty good at that.

“So let’s get you the help you need,” he crooned in her ear, his breath tickling her.

“That’s…not a bad idea.” She fought to keep the panic out of her voice. She took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart. She needed to stay level-headed if she was going to talk her way out of this.

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