Burning in Madness Chapter 05
“Cut his hand off?”
A sharp scoff broke the dead silence.
I didn’t spare Arthur’s blood–drenched hand a second glance. Pushing off the sofa, I marched straight for Julian. The photographer was shaking like a leaf. I grabbed him by the
collar.
“The lighting in here is ruined,” I snapped. “Grab your
We’re moving to the master bedroom.”
reflector.
Ignoring the murderous glare burning a hole through my back, I dragged Julian down the hall.
Click. I threw the deadbolt on the heavy door.
Julian pressed himself against the wall, trembling
uncontrollably. “Jesus, Chloe. He’s bleeding… He’s going to kill
me.”
“Shut up,” I said, shoving him aside to lounge back on the king- sized bed.
I didn’t need him to take photos. I just needed him here.
Staring at the locked door, a vindictive thrill rushed through my veins. Hooking a finger under my lace garter, I pitched my voice into a breathy, exaggerated moan.
“Oh, Julian… your hands are so cold.”
Silence in the hall. But I knew that psychopath was right out there. I swatted a glass ornament off the nightstand. It hit the thick rug with a muffled, suggestive thud.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Just as Julian was eyeing the window for an escape-
CRASH!
The solid wood door shattered inward, the deadbolt ripped clean from the frame. Lethal splinters rained over the floor.
Arthur stood in the jagged shadows. is bespoke suit radiated pure, suffocating menace. Blood dripped from his right hand.
Behind his glasses, his eyes were pitch–black pools of unfocused rage.
He crossed the room in a blur. His uninjured left hand shot out,
clamping around Julian’s throat and lifting the grown man off
his feet.
“Get out of the country.” Arthur’s voice was a gravelly rasp. “If
you’re in New York by sunrise, I’ll carve you to pieces and sink
you in the Hudson.”
He hurled the gasping photographer into the hall like trash, kicking the mangled door shut behind him.
The sprawling bedroom was left to just the two of us.
An intense, primal sense of danger strangled my breath, but I
refused to shrink back.
Instead, I spread my knees, stretching the delicate lace, and jutted my chin out in provocation. “Policing my photoshoots now? So much for letting me live freely.”
He advanced on the bed, his chest heaving, his blood–caked
hand curled into a brutal fist.
“Are you hell–bent on punishing me?” he demanded, his gaze
nailed to the scrap of fabric barely covering my thighs. “Pushing me until I snap?”
“Drive you crazy?”
I sneered and crawled to my knees on the plush mattress to close the distance. When he tried to flinch away, I swatted his hand back.
Without hesitation, I grabbed his right hand. I smeared the wet mix of whiskey and fresh blood from his palm straight across my collarbone, deep into my cleavage.
Crimson bloomed violently against my pale skin.
The sheer visual shock made every muscle in Arthur’s body violently tense. A tortured, guttural groan ripped from his throat.
“I thought you found me filthy,” I taunted, twisting the knife.” Go get your sterile latex cots. Or would you rather strangle me, stuff me, and keep me in that hidden vault under your study? The one hoarding my used lingerie?”
The word “vault” lit the powder keg. It obliterated the very thread of rationality holding him together.
“You’re begging for it.” last
He lunged. One hand cupped the back of my head while his bloody fingers lashed around my throat. He slammed me back into the tangled sheets.
His scorching weight pinned me down, reeking of blood and whiskey.
“I warned you…” he ground out, his handsome face inches from
mine. A raw, devastating frenzy surged in his eyes. “I told you, the second I touch you without my gloves, I turn into a monster that sickens even me!”
Suddenly, he ripped his hand from my throat and clawed at his own collar.
Riiiiiip.
The bespoke fabric tore open, mother–of–pearl buttons pinging off the walls. He finally shed the polished, civilized veneer he had worn for an entire year.
His tight, heavily corded chest was bared to the air, flexing with every ragged, desperate breath.
And then, I saw it.
Right above his heart.
Branded into his pale flesh was a stark, pitch–black tattoo. The
edges were still angry and red–freshly needled into his skin during some recent, maddening bout of repression.
It was a pair of lips. Filthy. Suggestive.
Beneath it, slashed in jagged Gothic script, was a single letter:
“C.”
Chloe. My name.
My mind flatlined. That tattoo sat directly over the main artery
to his heart. With every single beat, my mark throbbed against his chest, screaming in sick, fervent devotion.
This wasn’t mere obsession. This was the soul–crushing
submission of a man diseased to the bone. He had encased himself in ice just to cage the fire that would burn me to ashes.
“See it now?” Arthur laughed–the cracked, hoarse sound of a cornered animal. “You are the sickness eating me alive. Every waking second, I fight the urge to tie you to this bed and take you by force.”
Then, the titan who ruled Wall Street with an iron fist, who bankrupted empires with a whisper… let me go.
He took a step back.
Then came a heavy, muffled thud.
Arthur dropped to one knee on the pristine rug. Right between my legs.
The power dynamic inverted in a heartbeat. I sat high on the bed while he stared up at me, postured like a zealot begging his goddess for ruin.
With his clean left hand, he ripped the deep–navy silk tie from his neck. His ultimate symbol of power, cast aside without a second thought.
He shoved the tie into my palm. His calloused thumb dragged across my fingers with greedy, damning desperation. He looked at me like I was his salvation–and his executioner.
“Wanted a thrill? Wanted a man to play with?”
He tilted his head back, baring his vulnerable throat. The sheer agony of his restraint forced a feverish red to the corners of his eyes.
“Play with me. Chloe, play with me.”
He panted, the words tearing out of his jagged soul.
“Command me. Break me. Use this to leash me like your dog… Just don’t let another man look at you ever again. Please.”