Forbidden Touch: A Best Friends To Lovers Romance - Iona Rose (free ebook reader .txt) 📗

It was the wrong answer. Rather than calm him down, it makes him madder. His face contorts and turns red and then Jeremy roars like an animal. He pulls the painting I have above my fireplace down off the wall and slams it down on the back of one of my armchairs. He slams it over and over until the canvas splits and then he throws it angrily away. He closes the gap between us in three long strides, his sway no longer as pronounced as earlier. I can tell he’s still pretty wasted though. His pupils are huge and when he presses his face into mine to yell at me, I can smell the alcohol fumes radiating off him. I don’t think he’s even close to sober enough for me to be able to reason with him. I have to try though. I move backwards slightly, but he follows me. I open my mouth to say something, anything. Jeremy beats me to it though.

“Who the fuck do you think you are Erika? Why do you think you’re too fucking good for me huh?” Jeremy screams. His face is almost purple now he is so angry. A vein pulses wildly out of control on his forehead. I have never seen Jeremy like this before and it’s truly scary.

“Well? Why do you think you’re too good for me?” Jeremy screams again, grabbing my upper arms and giving me a little but rough shake when I don’t answer his question quickly enough for his liking.

How about because you think it’s ok to smash my place up and then get in my face and yell? That’s what I’m thinking but it’s not what I say. I’m not that stupid. I need to calm Jeremy down before this gets even more out of hand, not make him madder.

“I never said that I was too good for you,” I start.

It’s true. I didn’t. And I wasn’t even thinking it until this moment.

“No but you were thinking it weren’t you? Princess Erika, waiting for her knight in shining fucking armour to come and give her a fairy tale ending. Well guess what? He’s not coming. Because if I can’t have you, then no one can,” Jeremy yells.

As he says it, he reaches out for me again, but this time, he doesn’t grab my upper arms. This time is so much worse; his hands grab me around the throat. The hands that used to caress me so gently are now choking the life out of me and I have no idea how this whole thing escalated so quickly.

I can feel panic gripping me as I struggle to breathe or get free. Preferably both. Instead of both, I get neither. My airway is well and truly cut off, and Jeremy is far too strong for me to push away. Even without my head being spinning and my lungs burning from the lack of oxygen, I think he would still have been too strong for me to push off me. I slap at the hands around my neck, but Jeremy just carries right on squeezing as though my slapping does nothing but tickle and my panic is nothing but amusing. I think that’s the worst part. I can see the amusement in Jeremy’s eyes as he chokes the life out of me.

Through the rushing of my own blood that I can hear in my ears, I think I can hear something else. A siren. And it is getting closer. Please let it be real. Please don’t let it be a hallucination.

My suspicion about the siren is confirmed when Jeremy curses and lets go of my throat. It is just in time. Large black globules have begun to float in front of my eyes and I think another ten seconds and I would have lost consciousness. Another thirty seconds or so and I might have been dead.

I bend double, rubbing my hands over my throbbing neck and coughing and choking as I try to breathe through my agonising, bruised throat. Each breath brings blessed relief and at the same time, angry hot agony. It’s an odd mixture, one I don’t much care for, but the relief wins over the agony and I keep gasping.

“You called the fucking cops on me?” Jeremy asks.

Even in my current state I can’t help but notice that he sounds not only surprised but a little bit hurt too, like I am somehow the bad guy here. I shake my head quickly, ignoring the pain in my throat, and trying to keep the judgemental tone I want to use out of my voice.

“You would have seen me on the phone if I’d called anyone,” I say.

My voice is a little raspy but it doesn’t sound too bad. It is hard to believe that just seconds ago, I had really thought I was going to die. That Jeremy was going to crush my windpipe until I was dead.

“It must be one of your neighbors. Nosey bastards never could mind their own businesses,” Jeremy says, again sounding like he is the victim here, being persecuted by my mean neighbors for no reason.

The sirens are so close now that the police can only be a block or two away at most. Jeremy is going to have to make the choice between staying and tormenting me and then being arrested, or leaving while he still has a shot at getting away.

Unfortunately for me, there is a third option for Jeremy. One I hadn’t thought of. His fist flies out, catching me unaware. It catches me square in my cheekbone, a stinging blow that makes me take a step back. My foot catches on something and I stumble. I feel myself going down, my arms pin wheeling, looking for something to grab but finding nothing.

Jeremy has already turned and walked away from me, heading for the front door. I don’t see whether he gets away or not, because as I fall, my head collides with the