Free His Confession (By His Command #8) by Ana W. Fawkes

-1-
     
    I stood frozen, shocked and
scared. Normally, when those kinds of feelings ran through my body, I would
look to Jonathan. He would help to ease them just by the look in his eyes or
the strong touch of a single finger.
    But I didn’t have Jonathan
Black with me right then.
    He was in the bedroom of our
hotel room and all I could see were his feet, pointed in the air. There was a
lifelessness floating around the room that was only competed by the vibrant
life that was Katherine. She stood in a red dress - the red dress I
wore on a forced date with Kellen - and
looked at me.
    “You’re K?” I asked.
    “I’m K... K for Katherine.
I’m sure you know the alphabet, correct?”
    She was stunning, beautiful
and deadly all in the same breath. I had a chance to run; I could have been out
the door and gone before she knew what was happening. But she didn’t need to
keep her guard up with me. I needed to keep my guard up with her. I had no idea
what she was capable of.
    And even if I ran, what
would I do? Where would I go? I had no connections and no contacts. As much as
Jonathan Black let me into his multi-billion dollar lifestyle, I wasn’t in all
that far. And that realty crushed my heart.
    I touched my chest with one
hand and my lips with the other.
    “You’re trying to escape
right now,” Katherine said. “Your mind is spinning. If you need a moment, you
can have the key to my hotel room. I’m right across the street...”
    I gasped and remembered the
text messages Katherine had sent to me. How she claimed she had been watching,
waiting, wanting to kill both Jonathan Black and I. I looked again the bedroom
and felt my stomach turn. Katherine did not need to touch me at that point to
kill me. And when I met eyes with her, she knew it. By killing Jonathan Black
she would have effectively killed me.
    I would have nowhere to go
and no urge to even try.
    I would wait and wilt,
wanting nothing more than my own death - no matter how painful - just to have
the chance to maybe find Jonathan Black again. In some other realm.
    “What do you want?” I asked,
my voice too shaken to even try to appear normal.
    “Everything he took,” Katherine
said. “Doesn’t it bother you? Doesn’t it make you wonder... why you? Why now?
What about tomorrow? You think he’s going to stay with you forever?”
    I swallowed and didn’t
answer. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow or the future. I’d much rather live
in a world where Jonathan Black did all the thinking and acting, leaving me
with surprises around every corner, keeping me alive and feeling like I had
purpose.
    Katherine stepped towards
me, the red dress hugging her wide hips perfectly. Her hips shot left to right,
left to right. If this was the woman Jonathan Black once had and left, then
what was I? I compared nothing to Katherine... not in looks or action,
obviously.
    She reached for my face and
touched my cheek.
    “So soft,” she whispered.
“You’re like a delicate flower, aren’t you?”
    “Is he okay?” I asked.
    “Look at you, so worried
about him. Does he worry about you?”
    “Yes,” I said, starting to
cry.
    “That’s why he sent you into
the arms of a stranger,” Katherine said, referring to Kellen. “The arms of a
stranger with enough power, money, and connections that he could make you
disappear. You’d be... gone.”
    The thought made me shiver.
    Jonathan wouldn’t do that to
me, right? He wouldn’t just let Kellen steal me away and do nothing about it.
    “He stole me from Kellen,”
Katherine said, “or that’s what he believes. Kellen too. The bottom line was
that Jonathan Black was much sexier than Kellen... which I’m sure you can agree
with... right?”
    I nodded.
    Katherine laughed. “Oh,
Isabella Grace, your innocence just pours out of you. Marvelous. Beautiful. It
actually turns me on and I have no interest in women.”
    Katherine turned and walked,
moving as if she owned time and that time owed her something. The slower