“He was lucky,” he comments pointedly.
“Lucky? You popped out his eye with a spoon like you were using a melon baller.”
He simply shrugs his shoulders in response and pulls that familiar oversized bronze coin out of his pocket and works it across his knuckles effortlessly like a magician preparing for his next trick. Flicking it up, it spins through the air, gravity tugging it back down into his palm before his darkened two-tone gaze meets mine.
My lips part to ask him what the fascination is with the coin, but he speaks before I can get a word out, seemingly knowing already what it is I’m about to ask him.
“Sometimes letting fate weigh in on a dilemma helps. I ask it a question, and the coin helps tip the scales in whatever favour the universe believes I should lean. As I said, Simon was lucky on this occasion.” He explains it so nonchalantly, I almost miss the implications of what that would mean for Simon.Almost.The satisfaction I think Ezra is experiencing is a tangible wisp of energy bouncing between us right now. He has zero fucks to give in regards to his early morning maiming, and the more thought I give to how Simon made me feel, I can’t argue Ezra’s reasoning.
“What did you ask the coin? What was the dilemma?”
“I contemplated driving the handle of this spoon through Simon’s eye socket, twisting once it was good and buried inthe soft tissue of his brain and effectively making him a human popsicle.”
A squeak of surprise barrelling up my throat has Ezra’s lopsided smile growing. I should be running as fast as my legs can carry me out of the room and away from this man, but yet the same question lingers on a halted breath, and the need to know the answer has me firmly rooted in this chair opposite him. “Why?”
“He’s one eye down, Little Red; next time, he’ll think twice about looking so intently at what ismine,” he growls, his jaw taut as a flicker of feral possessiveness eclipses the softness of his mottled green and amber eyes.
Why does watching Ezra stake his claim on me make me feel so fucking giddy, so alive and cherished in a way I never have before?
“You know, if you want to tell me what he whispered in your ear, I won’t hesitate to take his tongue next.” His statement sounds far too relaxed, as though he’s offering me the last bite of a burrito. He’s anything but relaxed though; the tension working his hands into fists and that vein throbbing in his neck tells me Simon really did get off lightly because I suspect Ezra would have been more than willing to do more damage if the flip of his coin had another spin in it.
Reaching out, his thick calloused fingers skate across my neck as he pushes aside my hair. My lip quivers at the contact, and I bite down on it to silence the whimper begging to be released.
I move in tandem with him as he retracts his hand, my body moving without permission to close the space between us. Pinching his lower lip between his fingers to stifle his smile, he appears to ponder something, his gaze never breaking away from mine as we settle comfortably in our silent exchange.
It’s comical how his broad tattooed frame dwarfs the bistro table bolted to the floor separating us. It would take all of two seconds and very little effort for him to upend it and toss it aside, but if the playful twist of his features is enough of a show, Ezra is enjoying toying with me.
Have I been so irrevocably damaged that I find this man’s brutal show of ownership of me a turn on?
Always ready and waiting to hit me with a dose of reality, that little voice in my head pipes up, cackling like a hyena, ’Stupid questions win stupid prizes. Now don’t be ungrateful, and mount the brooding psychopath like a good girl. You know you want to.’
I’m sure if anyone could hear my internal monologue, I would be the one fitted with a strait jacket and secured to my bed for the foreseeable future, while men in white coats debate my lobotomy treatment.
But as crazy as the little voice is, I can’t ignore the glaring fact that I am wet between my thighs as sexual tension rages like a wildfire in my belly. I’m officially fucked in the head and the heart if I think catching feelings for the psychopath is a good idea.
Fuck him, get it out of your system.
I physically shake away the heaviness in my head. Maybe that lobotomy isn’t a half bad idea.
The loose strands of hair around my face tickle my neck, and I imagine it’s his fingers exploring my skin. The lightest of touches before he tightens his grip around my throat. Holding me in place as I fight for air, as though the fit of his hand was made especially to collar me as he claims me as his.
The clattering of trays breaks the spell I’m under, and the room around me rushes back into focus.
The sly smirk that tugs at the corner of his lips tells me he knows where my slutty little thoughts have wandered to.“That twinkle in your eyes for me, Red?”
“I’ve never even had a guy give me flowers. I mean this is… Thank you,” I choke out, spluttering the words like I’ve never spoken a lick of English before, genuine appreciation laced between the residual shock still thrumming in my veins.
“Thank you?” he parrots. “Is that for your gift, the late-night orgasm denial, or Simon’s maiming in your honour?”
“All of the above,” I reply before thinking. The imprint of his presence when I awoke this morning was like a living, breathing entity in my mind. The feel of his fingers dimpling my skin as he parted my legs, the harsh graze of his teeth against my instep, the tickle of his facial hair across my inner thigh. Even in the drug haze of my sleeping pills, Ezra Wolfe’s energy was too strong. The fact that I feel emboldened by the idea that he wanted to taste me, and he just took the opportunity, should probably ratchet up at least a smidgen of unease, but it doesn’t. I just want to know if he’ll do it again tonight—and that idea has my core throbbing as a jolting zing flickers up my spine.
“I’m the bad guy your fairytales warned you about, sweetheart,” he cautions.
I don’t get the chance to tell him how he made me feel, or how desperately I need him to fulfil his promise and finish what he started, when the terse throat clearing of doom draws my attention away from him. I can see in my peripheral vision that his gaze stays trained on me as I jump to my feet before Lenora.
If fiercely aggravated had a face, it would be hers, her thin lips taut and a brow raised as she glares at me.
“This is cosy. I didn’t think it pertinent to inform you, Miss Morgrieves, on the patient/employee etiquette that we expect here, but walking in here, I believe I may have failed to highlight what constitutes inappropriate behaviour.”
