Page 5 of Compulsion
Lily.She’d been haunting his dreams far too frequently of late.She’d tried to get private appointments to see him.Been very tenacious about her visits.
He’d had her escorted from his main office building at least twice.Had even told the security guards there that she was not to be allowed back on the premises under any circumstances.
Lily wanted to destroy him.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Except…now she was saying that she’d saved him?What sick joke was that?
“There are no windows down here.”Her voice was low.Still oddly sexy.Husky.“So that means we have to go up the stairs together.The door up there is our only way out.I would have tried to go and get help while you were knocked out, but you know, cuffed.You’re no lightweight, so I couldn’t haul you up on my own.We have to get out together.You and I are partners in this thing.”
He rose to his feet.
She did, too.
When Atlas weaved, Lily’s free hand flew out to brace him.As if she worried that wasn’t going to be enough, she then put her whole body against him.Softness.Sweetness.The warm scent of vanilla.
He hadn’t gotten close enough to ever catch her scent before.Now he knew that he would never forget how she smelled.How very good.
Sweetness in hell.
“It was incredibly heroic of you to twist your body to cushion me as we fell down the stairs.I definitely appreciate the gesture.Especially since you did it when you were only semi-aware.Sort of like an instinct.Didn’t exactly realize you had a protective instinct carved so deeply into your bones.”
“Stop analyzing me.”Lily was a shrink.She lived to poke and prod in people’s heads.He didn’t want her to talk about his instincts, because they were quite the opposite of protective.Good instincts didn’t fill him.He was dangerous.A true predator.
He also had zero memory of any fall down the stairs.Or of cushioning her.
“Clearly, you’re hero material, and I was very, very wrong about you.My apologies.”
Fuck that.He’d never been a hero a day in his life.And when he found the sonofabitch who’d done this to him…
You’re a dead man.But, then again, Atlas had intended to kill the bastard all along.As soon as Atlas had realized a serial was hunting inhistown, he’d been tracking the kills.Gathering evidence.Researching.Hunting his prey.
It was kind of what he did.Not that he intended to tell the lovely lady with him that important fact.Not like he went around broadcasting the fact that he was a monster.
But…what did she mean about beingwrongabout him?“So you no longer think I’m a chip off the old block, huh?”Deliberate words.A taunt.
Lily didn’t answer that question.Of course, not.Because despite the fact that they were trapped in a nightmare, maybe she still thought that Atlas was just like his twisted bastard of a father.As savage and sadistic as they came.
She would not be wrong.“Maybe I’m the one you should fear.”The words just came out.Dark and rumbling.
“You’re trapped with me.”Her immediate response.“You are currently my only hope of survival.I figure you and I will live or die together, so how about you save your scary routine for later?”
His scaryroutine?His jaw nearly dropped.
“You’re also probably a lot more intimidating when you aren’t weaving on your feet,” she added.
Dammit.He was weaving.A bit.Fine, a lot.
“We should hurry,” she whispered even as she continued to brace him.“Up the stairs, and then, we’ll figure out how to get past the door.I am assuming it’s locked.Not like I could drag you up there with me to check.But what kind of killer wouldnotlock in his prey?So, let’s go.Time is ticking and all that.Getting closer to our own grisly deaths.”
She was surprisingly calm about the situation.That should worry him.He didn’t think a typical person would be calm in this scenario.But from what he’d learned about her, Lily Gallo was far from typical.
She has a darkness in her past to match my own.
Her calmness—and her darkness—they both just intrigued him.He had tried to stay away from her.Truly, he had.He’d warned the woman to keep her distance.Now they were cuffed.Trapped together, just as she’d said.
Fate had such a twisted sense of humor.
