Page 190 of Like Grim Death: Part One
Atlas runs his bottom lip up the column of my throat. My lips part reflexively, the slightest moan leaving them.
Atlas’s body is closer to mine. I can feel his heat.
“You keep fucking with me,” Atlas says, his fingertips coming to my face and gently guiding my chin down. “You keep tempting me, just by being you. I know why he likes you. Why he killed for you.”
I open my eyes. The darkest of blue with flecks of brown meet mine.
He runs his thumb over my bottom lip, pulling it out and exposing my teeth.
“You’re just so much fuckingfunto toy with. Turn around Ella. Let me play with you.”
“No.” Nervousness skitters in my veins and my pulse flies. I shake my head, turning out of his grip. But he lets me, and it doesn’t make me feel any better. I know now when the 6 men surrender battles, it’s only so they can win the war. Sure enough, his hands plant beside my head again. “You can’t do this. We cannot do this. He’s here. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know about The Madilyn, your stupid warning, about Samson, about Natalie, about Rival’s Claw and…and wecan’t—”
“Turn around, Ella.”
I shake my head and hug my arms tighter to my chest.“No.”
“Do you want me to force you? Is that what he does?”
“Atlas. No. Tell me what you know—”
“Do you think I’m your fucking dog and you just command me to sit and lay down and roll over whenever the fuck you—”
“Back up.”
He slams his fist on the door beside my head. I flinch when I see the anger flash in his eyes. “You’re just like her.”
Her? His mom? Is that—
“You’re just like Natalie. Are all whores the same? Does everyone think they can fucking order me around?” He laughs, and it causes cold to fill my veins. “But you don’t know what’s happened to Natalie, do you,pretty girl?”
My lungs squeeze at his mocking, oxygen constricted.
He runs his mouth over my cheek, leaving chills in the wake of his warmth. His lips come to my ear, and I’m shivering, his body pinning me against the wall. “You don’t know where she is right now.”
I push at his chest, but he doesn’t budge. My eyes are squeezed closed, and I’m starting to regret…everything. Mainly, underestimating this man in front of me. Always so soft, so kind, but increasingly more demonic, as time has gone on.
The devil hides his evil in a smile. I should’ve known all along.
“She’s probably naked,” he says, warm breath causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise. “Covered in blood.” He presses further up against me, and I feel how turned on he is. My fingers flex against his hoodie, gripping the fabric. “Freezing cold.” He seems to relish the words. The way he describes Natalie’s discomfort. “She’s probably shaking,terrified.”He grows harder with every sentence, his chest crushing me to the door. It’s like a horror movie he’s painting inside my mind.
My breaths come in broken pants as he shoves his thigh between both of mine.
I gasp, and he laughs, biting the lobe of my ear. I’m hanging onto his every word at the exact same time I want torun,just like he told me to do, weeks ago.
“They won’t be nice to her, Ella.”
My throat feels tight. Is it true, what he’s saying about Natalie? Where is she? What’s happening to her? Who isthey?Issheat Liar’s Island?
Vividly, my mind flashes back to the movie I watched with Maverick.A Death at Shadow Villa,directed by the man from West Virginia. Arlo Estere. I imagine the girl dying in the aisle, the men silent all around her.
Is that going to happen to me? To Sid? Is it what’s happening to Natalie?
They won’t be nice to her, Ella.
“But at least she won’t bedead.”He snarls the words in my ear, then dips his head to the crook of my neck, biting at my shoulder blade softly. He licks where he bit me, grinding his knee between my thighs.
My nipples draw into tight points.
