Attraction by T. C. Anthony Read Free Book Online

for good, I could move on with my life.
    When I finally got the nerve, I walked up to his floor and knocked on his door.
    Michael opened the door within seconds. “What took you so long? I thought maybe you had reconsidered. Come in, I won’t bite…not unless you’re ready for that.” And again Michael had found amusement in his suggestions of inflicting pain.
    I began to tremble as I recalled Marcus’s words from earlier: If you go near him again, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.
    “I need to use the restroom,” I said to Michael. I needed to get some air. I needed to splash some cold water on my face, as I had begun to sweat from fear of someone finding out that I had willingly come back here yet again.
    The pain was my drug; the numbness was the enticement. The fear of what he would do to me and the pain from what he was going to do was better than what I had been feeling inside, and that made me forget everything.
    But now that Marcus knew, there was no telling who he would share my indiscretion with or what lengths he would go to, to ensure it didn’t happen again. I could lose my job, the only friend I had left, and the reputation that I had spent my life building.
    I felt nauseated as I looked at myself in the mirror; the girl in the reflection was not the girl I had known for thirty-two years. The black circles around her eyes yearned for rest. Her skin, pale and gray, craved some sunlight and happiness. No, this wasn’t me. This was hopelessness.
    I have to get out of here; I have to go to—
    But as I decided to leave, my thoughts were jerked silent by a thunderous crash of splintering wood.
    I ran out of the bathroom and into the main room to find Alexander and Marcus standing over the threshold, past the busted door of Michael’s apartment.
    “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Michael yelled, but his question was more or else answered as Alexander swung his arm and cracked Michael’s cheek with his fist.
    “ ALEXANDER, NO! ” I yelled.
    Strangely I wasn’t yelling for him to stop hurting Michael; I yelled because I feared that Alexander would kill him.
    But Alexander didn’t stop; he viciously hit Michael over and over until Michael’s still body couldn’t defend itself.
    Seeing that he had done his due diligence in beating the shit out of him, Alexander crouched over Michael’s head and snarled at him, “I suggest you move out of this city, because if I so much as hear your name in her presence, I will make sure that my hands are the reason your heart stops beating.”
    Alexander stood and, in a wave of anger, moved toward me. “I told you to get away from him. Do you have any fucking idea what he could have done to you? You continue to bludgeon me with your behavior, and yet I am the one here now coming for you .” Alexander’s face was tight with anger. His dark gelled strands of hair were disheveled in a way I had never seen before, and his eyes were blood shot. His hands shook, his knuckles were covered in blood, and his shirt was ripped at the neck, displaying throbbing veins over his tightened pecks. The anger and adrenaline covered him in sweat, and I flinched as the vision of his desirable ferociousness in its entirety sunk into my senses.
    I stilled—silent and affronted as Alexander picked up the faint remains of the woman I used to be and carried me out of the apartment.
    When we reached the parking lot, I felt a rush of embarrassment and a need to defend being at Michael’s apartment. And so I wiggled myself out of Alexander’s arms and began my fight.
    “What do you think you are doing? You have no right to be here!” I screamed at both of them, realizing Marcus must have told Alexander everything. “And you,” I said, pointing at Marcus, walking toward him wildly, “you promised you wouldn’t tell him. How could you?”
    But two hands grabbed my elbows and pulled me back from him.
    I turned, only to find Samantha—and not Alexander as I had