Page 11 of Don't Run
“I—”
“That is all, Ms. Shaw.” There’s a finality there I’m not about to fight, despite the uneasiness churning in the pit of my stomach.
“Good night, Mr. Carter.”
“Good night, Micah.”
I stare at my black phone screen a beat after the call is finally disconnected, my brows dipped and my heart racing like I just got written up.
“What the fuck was that?” I whisper into the night.
Instead of finding a bathroom upstairs, I duck off into the first one I see on the first floor. I’m the only one inside of the two-stall space and I take a second to regulate my breathing.
The light in the bathroom is the brightest in the house, but it’s still a dim glow. Just as I thought, my lipstick is faded and smeared around my mouth.
Once I reapply, I just stand in front of the mirror, studying my reflection.
My nipples are still pebbled against my latex top and only grow harder when I think about walking back upstairs.
My skin is flushed, adding a ruddy coloring to my deep complexion, and my pupils are stretched so wide, only the thinnest ring of brown remains.
My heartbeats slow until I’m aware of each one knocking in my chest. After a spell, I splay my hands against the antique vanity, leaning forward to examine myself closer.
People have their vices—other people, money, drugs. Mine has always been lust and the feeling I get from satisfying it.
The high I get is unmatched, and if people weren’t so damn disappointing, I’d probably have a near-constant supply of the thing I crave around the clock.
Even more reason to enjoy tonight for what it is.
NEED THAT
The first faceI see when I walk back into the hall isn’t a face at all. It’s a jack-o-lantern mounted on shoulders that look sturdy enough to carry this whole house.
Immediately recognizing him as the man I drooled over at the door, I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth, trying in vain to hold back my smirk now that I’m under his attention.
Even if I can’t see his eyes, I sense them on me, and it feels like a potent promise of words we haven’t yet exchanged.
Damn, he’s even taller than he looked from a distance earlier.
And while I can’t see his face, his head is cocked so I find myself craning my neck to stare at the carved slits where his eyes should be.
I won’t lie, the stitches running from his collarbone and diagonally across the left side of his chest look too real. And so do the ones crawling down the right side of his torso.
Whoever did his makeup needs a raise.
Because if I didn’t know better, I’d think someone had been carving his skin just like they’d carved that pumpkin on his head.
Unfortunately, instead of apprehension clawing its way to the surface at the dark thought, all I feel is a tingling thrill followed by a spike of intrigue as I drink in the rest of him.
He is a work of sculpted perfection. So perfect my jaw slackens at the muscles defining every visible part of him. The circumference of his biceps alone makes my mouth run dry.
I justknowthis man can fling me around without breaking a sweat.
AKAmy type.
There’s no reason I should be this hypnotized by a man whose gaze I can’t hold and who hasn’t uttered a word to me.
My heart gallops anyway, and it’s like he can read my mind because half a beat later, words come tumbling from the jack-o-lantern’s jagged smile.
