Page 11 of Love Corrupted
“And what happens if I decline?”
“Do you want to find out?”
No…
Yes…
Did I have a choice? I didn’t want to try and solve his impossible riddles anymore. What was so special about seven days? What was so special about me? I had no idea how to describe the chaotic emotions swirling inside my chest.
I hadn’t wanted any of this, but now I couldn’t deny that on some level Ididneed him. I’d started falling for him from the beginning, and there wasn’t anyone around to catch me except the same man who tripped me.
Accepting him as he was would be accepting the devil that lived inside him. It would be doing what I’d done my whole life, burying my head in the sand and being a coward.
Frustrated, I moved away from him, going further down the hall.
As expected, he quickly closed the distance between us, taking hold of my arm and making me stand in front of him, chest to chest. Every time I pushed him away, he just pulled me closer.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, peering up into his gorgeous eyes.
“I honestly can’t give an answer that will satisfy you. I just want you to stay. I need you.” He threaded his fingers into my hair and began gently massaging my scalp. Like a kitten desperate for affection, I leaned into his touch.
I couldn’t hate him, and God, how I tried. Mason wasn’t a bad man. Bad men didn’t save tortured souls. He wasn’t a good man, either—he was just…him. He was something indefinable, tragically flawed but still human.
“I think you’re insane,” I quietly confessed after a few silent minutes.
He paused at my words, his grip going from soft to harsh. I’d offended him without meaning to, lulled into a stupid sense of safety by his gentle demeanor.
“YouthinkI’m insane?” He laughed humorlessly. “That’s always the prognosis, isn’t it?”
He tugged my head back and looked down at me with blatant displeasure on his face, a cruel smile appearing when I grunted from the sharp pull on my hair. His next words were a challenge.
“Let me show you the definition of insanity.”
Chapter Eight
I led her down the hall and took a sharp left turn, walking straight into a room that was bathed in dark fluorescent red.
There was a chair in the center like the one I used to restrain people in my studio. I didn’t let her see who was in it, using my body to block her view. Instead, I led her to the back wall and, in quick succession before she could fight me, I tied leathers cuffs around her wrists, ignoring her objections that followed.
“Mason, what are you doing?” She tugged, testing the strength of the straps, looking at me with fury and not a little fear in her eyes.
“Mason,” she called after me when I turned and walked away. Ignoring her was difficult, but it had to be done. This sudden strength she’d found was grating on my non-existent nerves.
She thought she could leave me? That I would just let her go? Not even death would stop me from owning her. Fuck if I knew why I was still going through such extremes for this damaged girl. Killing her would be as simple as counting to three, but I couldn’t do it.
From the moment I saw her tiny form when I was eleven years old, I’d never forgotten about the baby girl born in my basement. When her father fell into debt, it was like fate telling me she had always been mine.
Both our mothers were fucked in the head. That didn’t make either of us insane, though.
I hated that fucking word.
Normal people were the ones ruining the world. All I wanted to do was sit at home, drink a shot of bourbon, and fuck her until my cock went numb.
That wasn’t asking for too much on my end. She needed to forget about everyone and everything but me. I was all she needed, and it was time for her to see that.
Her mind needed to bend and her spirit had to break. Only then could I put her back together the correct way. It was almost like taking her apart to form the canvassed vision I had floating at the front of my brain—the one where my hands wielded a scalpel to peel the smooth flesh from her pretty white bones.
“Mason, what are you doing?” Her sweet voice broke through my thoughts, chasing my daydream away.
