Chapter 62 Blood on my lips
Melissa’s POV
“Gavin?” I whispered again, my thumb brushing across his cheekbone.
He was quiet. Too quiet. Just staring at me with those dark eyes that seemed different somehow. Less guarded.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly. My hand was still on his face, feeling the tension in his jaw. “Gavin, what’s going on? What’s with all those symbols? And who is Lord Zeus?”
He didn’t answer. Just kept looking at me like I was something he was trying to memorize.
Then, in a voice rougher than I’d ever heard from him: “Do you love me?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Do you love me?” He repeated, his hand coming up to cover mine against his cheek. His touch was different. Warmer, maybe. Or was I imagining it?
“Are you okay? What’s wrong with…”
“Do you love me, Melissa?” His voice cracked slightly on my name, and something in his eyes looked almost… desperate.
I looked around the empty corridor. This was so sudden. So unlike him. Gavin didn’t ask questions like this.
He didn’t ask.
But those eyes… they were Gavin’s eyes. Weren’t they?
But why did it look less blue?
“Yes,” I whispered, my heart pounding. “But I don’t think this is the right time to…”
He grabbed my hand before I could finish. Not gently. His fingers laced through mine with almost desperate force, and he was pulling me down the corridor with purposeful strides.
“Gavin, wait…”
He didn’t wait. Didn’t slow down. He didn’t even look back.
Just kept walking, practically dragging me along, until we reached a door I didn’t recognize. He pushed it open…some kind of executive office, it was dark except for the city lights filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows…and pulled me inside.
The door slammed shut behind us.
For a moment, we just stood there in the darkness. I could hear him breathing. Fast.
“Gavin, what’s…”
Then his mouth was on mine.
The kiss was aggressive. Hungry. Consuming. His hands were in my hair, on my waist, everywhere at once with an urgency that made my breath catch.
But something about it felt… wrong.
This wasn’t the passion I’d felt from Gavin before. This was almost violent.His hand wrapped around my throat.It hurt.
His fingers dug in too hard, making me gasp against his mouth. I tried to pull back but he held me there, his other hand gripping my hip hard enough that I knew there would be bruises.
“Gavin…” I managed to choke out, my voice strangled.
He didn’t respond. Didn’t loosen his grip. Just kissed me harder, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth with bruising intensity.
Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.
He lifted me suddenly, and my legs instinctively wrapped around his waist as he pressed me against the wall. But even this felt different.
The Gavin I knew was possessive, yes. Dominant, absolutely. But he was always controlled. Always careful. Always watching my reactions.
This man wasn’t watching anything. Wasn’t paying attention to the way I was trying to pull back, trying to breathe, trying to understand what was happening.
His hand slid down to grab my ass…hard. So hard I cried out into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss.
“Gavin, wait, please…”
He bit my lip.
Pain flooded my senses.I felt my skin break. Tasted copper flooding my mouth.
Blood.
Something inside me snapped.
I shoved him. Hard. Using all my strength to push against his chest, using the wall as leverage to force him back.
He stumbled backward, his grip finally releasing. I slid down the wall, my feet hitting the floor, my hand going to my bleeding lip.
We stood there in the darkness, both breathing heavily. The city lights cast shadows across his face, making it hard to see his expression clearly.
But I could feel the energy coming off him…wild, and untamed like an animal.
“What…” My voice was shaking. “What was that?”
He didn’t answer. Just stood there, chest heaving, watching me with eyes that looked both familiar and completely foreign.
My lip throbbed. My neck ached where his fingers had dug in. My hip burned where he’d grabbed me. I could taste blood in my mouth.
“I need to go.” The words came out barely above a whisper.
Still, he said nothing. He didn’t even try to stop me.
I fumbled for the door handle, my hands shaking so badly I almost couldn’t grip it. Finally, I got it open and practically fell into the hallway.
I didn’t look back.
I just ran.
My heels clicked frantically against the marble as I fled down the corridor. Away from that office.
Tears burned behind my eyes but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not yet.
I turned a corner, not sure where I was going. Just needing distance.
My clutch was still in my hand. I could feel Gavin’s phone inside it, the weight of it pressing against my palm.
I found a bathroom and stumbled inside, grateful to find it empty.
The lights were too bright. They made everything worse.
I looked at myself in the mirror and gapsed.My eyeliner was smudged. My lipstick was gone, replaced by blood. The marks on my neck were already darkening into bruises. My lip was swollen, a clear split visible where he’d bitten me.
I looked destroyed.
I turned on the faucet, cupping water in my hands to rinse my mouth. The water turned pink as I spit. I did it again. And again. Until the water ran clear.
Then I just stood there, gripping the edge of the sink, staring at my reflection.
Do you love me?
The question echoed in my head.
Why had he asked that?
My hands were shaking as I pulled paper towels from the dispenser, wetting them to clean the blood from my lip.
The cut wasn’t deep, but it was visible, with no way to hide it.
I dabbed carefully, wincing at the sting.Behind me, the bathroom door opened.
I spun around, my heart jumping into my throat.
But it was just a woman in a cocktail dress, looking at her phone. She glanced up at me, her eyes widening slightly when she saw my face.
“Oh honey, are you okay?” she asked,with genuine concern in her voice.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just… tripped. These heels.”
She didn’t look like she believed me, but she nodded and went into a stall.
I threw away the bloody paper towels and walked out before she could ask more questions.
The hallway was still empty. The music from the gala drifted faintly through the walls, cheerful and completely at odds with the chaos in my head.
And I wondered, for the first time, if I’d made a terrible mistake.
Who exactly was Gavin Cross?