Page 76 of Savagely Yours
He cleared his throat, the edge removed from his tone. “Marshall, get Miss Tapley a chair.”
Marshall left.
Dez went to cut into his pie, but I slammed my palm down on the table.
“I want a semblance of a life back,” I argued. “Haven’t I given you enough? You came to me at five o’clock this morning.”
“When should I have come?” he asked.
“Where?”
The side of his mouth twitched. “No, Miss Tapley.When?”
Marshall returned with the chair, and I flopped down onto the seat. Dez motioned for a server, removed a slice of pie from the box, set it on the empty plate the server provided, and slid the plate toward me. The server then handed him a set of utensils to give to me, and the man had taken “hands off my woman” to a whole new level.
“I don’t trust this,” I said. “Let’s switch.”
Dez eyed me, no doubt trying to figure out what I was up to. I sucked my teeth, leaned forward, and swapped our plates.
I felt the room watching us.
I also spotted Matthew Neal at one of the tables, confirming the name belonged to the one person whose death I was once tempted to organize via a professional assassin.
At this point, there was no turning back. On the ride up, I’d asked myself what I would do once I got the poisoned food awayfrom Dez, but the answer was always the same: whatever I had to do to save his life.
I cut a piece with my fork.
Dez had gone through so much to nurse me back to health. In one bite, all that work would have been for nothing. In one bite, he would go back to being alone when he’d spent so much of his life in isolation. My mortality balanced on the fork’s metal tines, covered in melted sugars, butter, and flour. Yet, all I could think about was that I did not, in any way, shape, or form, want Dez to take one less breath than I did.
He watched me, brows narrowed.
I slid the fork between my lips.
Then, his eyes widened, and he vaulted from the chair. One second, I was seated. The next, I was pressed against a wall, one of Dez’s hands around my neck.
The room went completely silent.
The hand around my neck shook, Dez’s eyes wild and more watery than I’d ever seen them, the rims slowly transitioning to red. He breathed so hard that I heard every inhale and exhale.
He probed my mouth with his index and middle finger, the grip around my neck making it impossible to swallow.
With a flick, he scooped out the slice.
The mush went sailing to the ground.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he whispered, his voice as unsteady as his hand.
Before I could answer, he plucked me off the wall, carried me with one arm, and stormed out of the room. No one called out to try to stop him, and we marched until we reached his apartment, where he burst inside and headed straight for the bathroom. There, he leaned me over the sink, returned those two fingers to my mouth, and stuck them so far back toward my throat, I gagged.
“Did you swallow any of it?” He probed again. “Tapley, answer me.”
“No, none,” I croaked.
He released me.
I slumped to the floor in front of the vanity, and he backed up until he was pressed against the bathroom door, the wildness still in his eyes.
The weight of what I’d done crashed down on me. Violent tears followed. “I…I overheard…” I shook my head. “The pie…it’s poisoned.”
