Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance by Savannah Rose (best ereader for pdf and epub .TXT) 📗

I sheathed the knife, stuck it in the waist band of my skirt, and fetched the handcuffs. Keeping a careful distance, like someone sidestepping a rattlesnake, I opened the manacles and stepped behind the tree, knelt down, and took his wrist. The last time I'd seen such a shade of purple was in an art gallery. An exhibit called Sunsets.

“You want me to do this,” I said.

“No.”

I held the cuff open, ready to slap it on. Gaping, metal jaws ready to bite. How much that would hurt I couldn't fathom to guess.

“What was the other question,” I said, watching how his knuckles were turning white as he increased the grip on himself.

“Can… can you forgive me?”

His words were stalled. Hard to talk when you're subjecting yourself to epic discomfort. Voluntarily, no less.

I closed the manacle on itself and chucked the cuffs into the brush.

The jingle jangle of the chain echoed as the irons landed somewhere in the foliage.

Maddox's hands fell away from themselves, and he turned to me with a look I couldn't define. Not this time. Maybe not ever.

“I can't trust you. I can't forgive you, either. But the thing is, Maddox? I'm tired of this shit. These fucking games.”

I took in a deep breath, and shuddered. I don't know why I did. Maybe I was so tired, so fed up, with everything and everyone, especially the douche bag sitting in front of me, rubbing his wrists and wondering what the hell I was going to do now.

“So what's going to happen is this – I'm going to go down to the beach and hopefully catch some dinner. I'm going to leave you here, and you can do whatever the hell you want. Drug my water. Set a trap, although I don't think you'd know how, throw my ass onto the ground and rape me if that's what floats your boat.”

“I'd never – “

“Like hell! Like asshole fucking hell! But I don't care anymore, you got it?”

“Ramona...”

“You killed her. You killed her, and you killed Leslie, too. You took everything away from me, you were the one responsible, and you didn't give a shit. Fuck, you didn't even know!”

“I didn't. I honestly didn't,” his voice was barely above a whisper.

“You're god damn right you didn't. And that's what makes you beyond pathetic. That's what makes me even worse, because I can't do it. I've had eight hundred chances to off your fucking ass, and I can't fucking do it.”

“Ramona, yeah you can. Sure, you can. That night, when you came to my office...? If I hadn't pulled the gun away, you would have shot me. No doubt you would have pulled that trigger.”

“Is that supposed to be encouraging?”

“Yeah, I think so. In a way. A weird way, sure, but… well, just look at us.”

I didn't want to look at us. I didn't want to think of us. I wasn't capable, anyway. I felt like a spiral, a mishmash of emotions and vortexing insanity and all I wanted to do was go down to the beach, and catch a damn fish. Ground myself. Stop looking at him.

I vaguely remember telling him to fuck himself before I gathered my fishing line, and headed down to the shore. The fish liked to gather in the pool at this time of day, when the tide was low. There were some Langoustine lobsters, too, down at the bottom. They were sort of a cross between a prawn and a hermit crab. Wee little nuggets of tasty love.

In hindsight, I should have left the Langoustines alone. Bass or haddock would have been just fine. Easy. Caught in the outcropping of rocks, I could just drop the line in and wait for them to bite. Also, I didn't have any means to carry the lobsters back if I'd caught them, but they were too appealing to me. Tempting, and I couldn't resist. Didn't want to resist. Snagging one or two of them was somehow symbolic, as if I was in control. Right now, I felt so out of control, I needed to prove to a couple of crustaceans who was boss.

I crawled across a jagged boulder, slick with moss of the sea. Last time I fished here, I remembered thinking how sleek it was, almost oily. Dangerous, but it did offer the fastest way to the flat ledge where I could catch some dinner.

I don't know what the fuck my hurry was. Maybe I thought the less time I was away from camp, the less likely Maddox was to pull some shit. I didn't know what sort of shit that may be, and an image of him waiting by the fire with two glasses of wine was right in line with those Langoustine.

Now who's the dumbass? I thought, unable to shake the absurdity of all this. For fuck’s sake, I got hot when I wrapped myself around him in a pond of fifty degree water. That was the primal part. Hearing about his brother, this Josh, seeing the sincerity in his eyes and knowing we had a common denominator – as bizarre as it was…

“Knock it off, shit head,” I admonished myself, just as my right foot slipped out from under me.

I windmilled my arms, a desperate, awkward gesture to regain my balance. I brought my eyes up, because as Coach Roberts taught us, the body goes where the eyes are looking, and slowly, surely retained my equilibrium.

I straightened at the waist, a tightrope walker without the rope, and when I was upright again I felt like pulling off a victory pose. Even though my gymnastic days were long behind me, I still had reflexes. Cat like agility, albeit in a slightly older cat. Unfortunately, I also had my trick knee.

It was the very next step I took, four fucking inches away from the fishing ledge, when my meniscus froze like a seizing piston, and no amount of feline gracefulness would