Page 11 of Irrevocably

No, he can’t be here. I didn’t hear him come in. I must be seeing things.

I turn around, but I’m not seeing things. He’s right there, standing behind me, tall, dark and infinitely dangerous. The pure lines of his face are carved from granite, the merciless blue of his eyes boring into me.

My heart beats like a drum in my head, so loud it’s a wonder he can’t hear it as well. I’m alone in the bathroom, and no one’s around. If he decided to kill me now, he could. Security wouldn’t hear my screams until it was too late.

He glances down at the knife still clutched in my hand and back up at me again. “You think a fruit knife will protect you?”

My fingertips are cold and I’m terrified, yet the defiance that gripped me on the beach that night is gripping me now. Finally, someone I don’t give a fuck about and that I don’t have to please. It’s liberating in a way.

“The orange I cut up with it this morning would say yes,” I snap. “What the hell are you doing here? Come back to finish the job?”

“Perhaps.” His gaze scans me like I’m a barcode. “I told you I’d find you.”

“Well.” I spread my hands, trying to ignore the thump of my heart. “Here I am.”

He glances down again and I realise with a sudden shock that a line of blood has trickled down my wrist, and is currently staining my sweatshirt cuff as it drips onto the floor.

Automatically, I pull the cuff down, to hide the blood, but in one of those lightning-fast moves, he grabs my wrist and shoves my sleeve up, exposing the cuts on my arms.

All the breath leaves my lungs, and I try to jerk my hand from his grip as a wash of shame fills me. I don’t want anyone to know about the cutting and most especially not the complete stranger who tried to kill me on the beach. But his hold is too strong and I can’t get free.

“Let me go,” I say, my voice hoarse and breathless.

He ignores me, studying the cuts on my arm then glancing at me again. “You did this?”

His gaze is relentless, but again, I’m tired and stressed out, and I’ve got shit to do. I haven’t got time to be threatened by random men. “No,” I say sarcastically, trying to pull away again. “I cut myself shaving, obviously.”

Lucien’s fingers tighten, his grip unbreakable. He doesn’t seem to care about the blood that stains his skin now as well as mine. He’s not even looking at it. He’s looking at me as if I’ve suddenly become interesting to him.

“Why aren’t you scared?” he asks mildly.

I’m already off-balance because of his hold on me, and the unexpected question knocks me even further off. “I am scared,” I tell him, before I can pretend otherwise.

“No, you’re not.” He searches my face. “You weren’t scared at the beach that night, either.”

“Oh sure,” I say. “I loved having some stranger try to choke me to death on the beach.”

“Really?” That black brow lifts. “Shall I try again?”

“Feel free.” I’m breathing faster now, adrenaline pouring through me, making me reckless. It’s like I’m on the world’s scariest rollercoaster and I can’t get off, and all I can do is ride it till the end.

His gaze drops to my scarf and, still holding onto my wrist, he reaches out and pulls the scarf away, baring my throat and the bruises he put there. Something flickers in his eyes as he notes them, the first sign of emotion I’ve seen in him, but I don’t know what it means or if it means anything at all.

“Why didn’t you tell your Hound friend about me?” He keeps staring at my throat. “Or your father?”

“None of your business.” I’m not telling him anything and certainly not that. “Now, either finish strangling me or get the fuck out of the women’s bathroom.”

Chapter Six

LUCIEN

Her eyes are very wide, the grey irises almost swallowed by the black of her pupils. I wasn’t entirely correct, she is afraid, but she’s also angry and defiant, which, again, I find … interesting.

She’s twenty-one, and small, fine-boned as a ballerina, yet she’s daring me to kill her as if I wasn’t much bigger, stronger and faster than she is. As if it wouldn’t take me two seconds to snap her neck.

It’s not fatalism. If it was, she wouldn’t be so angry. So, what is it that’s making her defy me?

Her delicate jaw is set at a stubborn angle, and I can feel the beat of the pulse in her wrist. It flutters against my fingertips fast and hard. The blood from her cut winds in a ruby bracelet around her forearm, down to her wrist, and onto the floor.