Toxic - Zoe Blake Page 0,1
it’s over.”
Swallowing back a sickening rush of nausea as my stomach twisted in knots, I marshaled my courage and choked out through clenched teeth, “I’m leaving you, Richard, for good this time.”
Every limb in my body went cold at my pronouncement. I had willingly killed the sun in my universe and now felt a creeping, clawing chill run over my body, as if all my warm blood, all the passion and desire he had brought to my life, had drained away.
His eyes hardened as his large hand enclosed my exposed throat. Like a rabbit caught in a snare, I stilled, my eyes wide with fright. The only sound in the room was the incessant ticking of the mantel clock and the sound of his harsh breathing. The minutes, or were they seconds, dragged on.
My eyes closed as his fingers squeezed. Welcoming death at his hands. My last macabre thought was how warm his fingers felt wrapped around my throat.
His lips crashed down on mine. Whimpering, I willingly opened my mouth for his assault. Taking possession, his tongue swept in. He tasted of blood and brandy. Releasing his grip on my throat and hair, his hands tore at my dress as he pressed me backwards. The edge of the desk dug into my hips before he lifted me high and placed me on its smooth mahogany surface. Wrenching my knees open, he stepped between them, his hands fisting the yards of skirt fabric in his frenzied effort to touch the skin of my inner thighs and higher.
Giving in to the power of his embrace, my fingers dug into his hair as I pulled him closer, wanting to feel the rough scrape of his stubbled jaw against my lips, needing to feel the hard press of him between my thighs. Craving his touch like an addict who needed a fix of the very poison they knew was slowly killing them.
My mouth opened on a plaintive keen as he ruthlessly pushed two fingers into my already aroused body.
“You’re mine, my little bird. There is no escape,” he roughly whispered against the curve of my ear before sinking his teeth into the soft lobe.
Unwanted reality crashed down on me. Damn me to hell for my sins. It was true I desperately longed to return to a time where I believed his lies, where I was a willing participant in his games. Where I allowed him to dominate my actions and very thoughts, but I couldn’t. It was as if he had placed me, his prized possession, in a glass display case high on a pedestal, and the awful truth had shattered the case into a million pieces. There was no going back.
Once more, I struggled in his embrace. This time he shocked me by letting go and taking a few steps back. Running a hand over his tousled hair, he picked his brandy glass up off the floor and poured another two fingers before draining the contents. Swiping the back of his hand over his mouth, as if to erase the taste of our final kiss, his hands clenched into fists as he turned on his heel and approached me.
Crying out, I raised my arms protectively as I turned my head to the side.
Richard stormed past me.
Confused, I gathered my skirts into my hands and scrambled off the top of the desk. Keeping my eyes on him, I slowly backed away toward the door. Frantically scanning the room, I snatched up an ornate, old-looking letter opener displayed on a nearby bookshelf.
Richard’s mouth curved up at one corner. “A gun didn’t stop me, my love. Do you really think a dull letter opener would prevent me from fucking you right here, right now, if I wanted to?”
I knew what I must have looked like in that moment. My tangled curls a wild mess around my shoulders and down my back. My dress half-hanging off my body and dragging on the floor as I clutched a tarnished makeshift knife to my breast. My gaze, wide with fright, shifting from left to right as I tried to anticipate his next pounce.
I looked as crazy as I felt… as crazy as he had made me.
Richard reached for the brass candlestick phone on his desk. Lifting the trumpet-shaped receiver to his ear, he pressed down on the switch hook a few times before speaking into the mouth receiver. I knew that phone connected to the butler’s pantry in the servants’ quarters.
Keeping his dark sapphire eyes trained on me, he