He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
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I whipped around, facing the archway to the lounge.
There he was, a figure of stark light and shadow, blocking the walkway.
Adrenaline spiked, and my blood ran cold as it rushed to my limbs.
His legs were squared and tense, ready to chase, to fight. His dark hair was artfully tousled, as it always had been when I was younger, but in the harsh kitchen light I could see how it had started to thin at the top. The smug smirk that had used to drive me wild now showed how his skin had crinkled and sagged with age and the cigarettes he hadn't managed to give up. He could only be in his mid-thirties, but the past four years hadn't been kind. Those good looks, which had made him a God amongst the girls in my school, had now withered and succumbed to a life of bad habits. Like his twisted soul was rotting him from the inside out, and it was finally starting to show.
A scream strangled in my throat, caught in fear's crushing grip. My heart was hammering in my chest, furiously beating against my ribcage, trying to shake my body awake.
"Did you like your card?" Mr R sneered as he waved the Valentine's card, I'd thought Keiran had sent me.
The question mark mocked me. I should have guessed who it would be. Now I saw it, I recognised the way the letters curled to the right. How many times had I seen that writing on assignments and homework, obsessing over the way he wrote my name?
"What are you doing here?" I choked out, inching back towards the kitchen door.
He grinned and slipped a small bronze key from his pocket. "You never noticed that this was missing."
My eyes narrowed on the key. It was the spare one for the flat, but I'd never used it. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd seen it. It had been thrown in some drawer on the first day of moving here and then forgotten about.
The realisation of how he'd gotten it, of the fact that it had been him who had broken in that day, made bile jump up in my throat. For it to be a stranger rifling through my things was bad enough, but for it to be him. The idea of his foul hands all over my life, all over again, made my muscles tremble with rage.
"Get the fuck out," I ground out through gritted teeth. The page in my hand crinkled as my fist clenched. I took another step towards the kitchen door.
This time he matched it.
"I always liked that filthy mouth of yours," he whispered while his treacle eyes glittered.
"Fuck you," I spat as I tried to focus.
One more step back, and I could reach the kitchen door. But then what? I'd have to battle with the lock to get it open. That would cost too many seconds. And even then, once I was out, where would I go? It was the middle of the night, even Gina would be asleep by now. A scream at this time of night might be enough to wake someone up, but would they think anything of it, or just put it down to the raucous shouts of someone coming back from a night out, or the local foxes calling out into the dark?
