Page 50 of Torched Spades
Until, eventually, the only want is to take.
She glances down at her knotted fingers and frowns. Truth isn't a pretty reflection, and the good doctor doesn't like what she sees.
Too fucking bad.Nobody does.
Becca’s eyes track my every move as I rise from my chair and stalk toward her. “You want to talk crimes, Doc? Here’s one for you… After your little visit to the warehouse last week, all I’ve done is flick matches and imagine fucking you while the whole place burns around us.”
She blinks, those pouty lips rounding in a perfect “o” as my confession forms a chasm in that orderly brain of hers. “I don’t think…” Panic flares in her eyes as she glances toward the closed door. “Maybe you should—”
“Don’t worry, Doc.” I let out a dark laugh. “The only pain I want to inflict on you is the kind you beg for.” Bracing one hand on the back of her chair, I skim the other along the slit in her skirt. “If I can’t torch buildings, I’ll settle for watchingyouburn.”
She swallows hard, that prim and proper mask crumbling. Sweet Becca isn’t used to having the tables turned on her, and it’s knocking her off her game.
“Johnny...” Her hands shake as she stumbles out of her chair. Keeping her eyes on me, she tries to edge backward, but her legs bump into her desk.
Trapped. Like a butterfly in a jar.
I’ve spent five weeks keeping her locked inside it, safe from the monster that consumes me every time I access those video feeds. The one who gnashes his teeth as she comes with my name on her lips.
Butshedid this.Shebrokethe jar.Sheset him free.
I close in, my palms pressed on the desk on either side of her. “We’d get along much better if you’d stop trying to fix me and just fuck me instead.”
“This is highly inappropriate,” she whispers unevenly, and if her serrated breathing wasn’t sawing at the tension between us, I’d almost believe she means it.
Almost.
My lips part in a slow smile. "There it is again. That air of superiority. Have you ever asked yourselfwhyyou specialize in impulse control disorders, Doc? Ever wondered why you seek people like me out? Maybe it’s because secretly, you like playing with fire just as much as we do.”
She recoils as if I've slapped her. “You know nothing about me.”
Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, cara mia.
Her demons are just as demented as mine, maybe more. The slight quiver of her chin tells me as much. If I were a decent man and she was an innocent woman, maybe I wouldn’t push as hard.
But I’m not, and neither is she.
“Think so?” I nod toward the silver frame still sitting on the left corner of her desk. The one displaying a young, smiling Becca wrapped in a uniformed man’s arms. “Didn’t you become everything you are for him?” I pause, my smirk widening. “Or was itbecauseof him?”
A tortured gurgle is the only warning I get before her palm cracks across my face, and my chin snaps toward my shoulder. I’m not surprised she dared to slap me. I'm surprised at the power behind it, and it only fuels an already raging fire.
I give her a patronizing wink. “Touched a nerve again, did I?”
“Get out,Mr. Malone,” she hisses. “We’re finished here.”
“I still have twenty minutes left.”
Becca’s jaw drops, another insult on her tongue, and I wait for it. Maybe a bit too eagerly because a look sweeps across her face that could cut glass. “I don’t think you understood me before, so let me be clear. The deal is off. I’m releasing you as a patient. I’ll be happy to recommend a colleague qualified to treat—”
“No, I don’t thinkyouget it, Doc.” She flinches at the bite in my tone, but she’s throwing out threats that have consequences gnarled around her fucking family tree. “You don’t have a choice, and neither do I. You may not like what you hear, but you’ll sit in that chair every Tuesday and listen to every damn thing I have to say.”
Especially since there’s been nothing but radio silence from the Rogue. Men like that don’t forgive and forget. They bide their time until the stakes are the highest.
“Or what?”
This fucking woman…
“Don't push me, Becca.” In another life, that’s all the warning I’d have to give. But this is Providence, Rhode Island. I’m not untouchable here.
