Blood drips across his fingers from the sliced skin pinched between them. I thrash in my chair but can’t escape his hold.
“Just a little nibble,” he says.
I press my lips tight. A choked growl of protest vibrates in my throat as he smears my bloody skin across my lips.
“No?”
His counterfeit pout turns into a reptilian grin.
David’s tongue slides out between his teeth and he lays the skin across it like a veil, holding it out for me to see. He closes his lips around it, lets it wiggle against his triumphant smile.
Then he sucks it into his mouth.
Eyes closed, his jaws work slowly, like he savors every bite as he rolls it between his teeth.
His audible swallow turns my stomach.
“Such a delicacy. So very rare.” He turns away to the table and drags a bottle of Pont Neuf across the stainless steel counter. “You know what else is rare?”
My answer is only ragged breaths.
“A woman like Sloane,” David says.
I’m going to be fucking sick.
I have never, never felt like this. Like there’s an empty pit in my stomach. Like I’m falling into it from the inside out. So helpless. So fucking desperate. That look in her eyes when I told her I didn’t love her, it haunts every breath I take. Those goddamn tears rip me apart.
“Not many people would do what she did for me,” David says as he spins the corkscrew into the bottle. It squeaks with every metronomic turn of his hand. “But then, that’s her way, isn’t it. Just like she protected that friend of hers, the Montague girl. So strange how that teacher just suddenly disappeared from their boarding school, don’t you think? People do have a funny way of conveniently disappearing around the Montagues.”
“Leave her alone,” I grit out.
“Though when I dug and dug and dug for answers, it seemed as though there were already rumors swirling about the things he did to the girls there. Terrible things. Depraved things. Deviant things. But at least he did one good thing—he made the Orb Weaver. A beautiful monster.”
The cork pops free of the bottle.
His voice drips with feigned innocence when David says, “Do you think she would want to do those deviant, depraved things with me?”
My vision reddens with rage as I thrash in the chair. “Leave her the fuck alone,” I snarl.
David sighs as he pours himself a glass of wine. “I don’t think she wants to either. But I’ll make her.”
I erupt within my restraints, unhinged. Wild. Insane.
But I go nowhere.
“Maybe I’ll take my time,” he continues as he unwinds the cork from the metal spiral. “Make her trust me. Maybe I’ll even make a miraculous semi-recovery. You know, not so much that I don’t still tug on her little black heartstrings, but just enough that she can convince herself into fucking a lobotomized man. Or maybe I’ve used up all my patience already. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, you know. Maybe I’ll just follow her all the way back to 154 Jasmine Street. I could break into her house and bring her a doggie bag. Feed her little pieces of you and then fuck her until I tear her apart, until she’s nothing more than another piece of bloody, pulverized meat destined for the trash.”
He saunters closer until he’s right in front of me, his gaze caught on his wine as he swirls it in the glass and then takes a sip.
“Either way,” he says as a smile sneaks across his lips, “the sound of her begging will be a beautiful symphony. A masterpiece.”
My throat clogs. My eyes fucking sting.
I know there’s no reasoning with him. There’s no bartering. I have nothing to offer. But I try anyway.
For her.
“Please, please, just leave her alone. If you want begging, I’ll fucking beg. If you want money you can have everything I own. If you want to cut me up into a thousand pieces, you can. Do whatever you want with me. Just please leave her be. Please.”
David leans closer. His eyes scour every inch of my face. “Why would I do that, when I can have you both?”
A flash of movement. Silver in the dim light.
Pain erupts in my wrist and agony spills from my lips. I look down to where the corkscrew is buried in my flesh, twitching with every beat of my heart.
“The Pont Neuf,” David says as he holds his glass beneath my bound arm. Blood trickles into the wine. “It’s nice, but a little bland for my taste. I like something full-bodied.”
He leaves the corkscrew in my arm as he takes a long sip. When David’s eyes fix to mine, they’re hazy, half-lidded. His slow smile is exultant.