“What does it feel like when you look at me,” I asked, unsure where I was getting the nerve to ask these questions, or why I even wanted to know.

“I see sunshine on a cloudy day,” he said, and I rolled my eyes at the song lyric and tried to pull my hand away, but he held it firm. “You make me feel warm in what is an otherwise very cold shell.” He didn’t move as I pushed myself up, so our noses were touching. “You should be afraid of me,” he said softly. “When I first saw you, all I wanted was your fear and your eyes.”

My body shook, thinking of how close I’d come to becoming his prey. I was still chained but in a different way. He’d somehow claimed my heart, and that terrified me.

“I am scared. Everything about you scares me, and yet…I want more of the days we had when you brought me coffee and we created art together.”

Cain rubbed the side of his cheek against mine. “Then why do you want me,” he asked, voicing what I’d been avoiding earlier. “If I scare you so much, why do you look at me with hunger in your eyes?”

“I don’t know,” I said, closed my eyes, and tried to capture his mouth with my own.

“Yes, you do. Don’t overthink it, just say what comes to you. There is no one here to judge you.” Lifting his head out of my reach, he forced me to stare into his eyes, which looked like twin pools of cerulean blue. “I will never judge you, Sunshine. You are free to be who you were really meant to be with me, but you need to let go. Stop thinking about what the outside world would think about you. Now tell me, why do you want me?”

“Because you make me feel alive.”

That statement was an oxymoron, yet it was the truth. The killer, the man that took lives, made me feel alive in a way that affected the fabric of my being.

Cain’s lips crashed against mine, and the world spun on its axis. The kiss was like a burning inferno that had just erupted as he ravaged my mouth. It was as if we couldn’t get close enough. Our tongues lashed together as the heat that had been there from the moment I’d seen him at the side of the road reached a boiling point.

There was too much space separating us, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of me. God help me. It felt so right. If I’d wanted to, I could choke him out right now, it would’ve been easy to wrap the chains around his throat, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to, even though I should.