Wake to Dream(31)
Max stood facing the sink, his shoulders moving beneath the black fabric of his shirt, his shoulder length hair a tangled mess where it hung in wild waves. Alice stood and stared at him for several minutes wondering if he knew she loitered behind him watching the way his arms worked back and forth polishing away the remnants of the dinner he’d cooked for their first night together.
Her eyes traced the lines of his shoulders and back, the muscles that lay corded and partially hidden beneath the folds of his once finely pressed shirt. Wrinkled now, the dark fabric was stretched taut over his shoulder blades before falling into a disheveled mess where it followed the tight dip towards his hips. Had they not come together in such a horrible way, she would have found herself attracted to the man that silently washed dishes, would have been impressed with the physique that spoke to everything masculine and strong about him.
A kitchen island stood between them with white cabinets and black granite counters. It was a touch of modern against the vintage features of the Queen Anne style house. She wondered when he’d remodeled the place, but knew from the stainless steel appliances that it couldn’t have been that long since he had the expensive appliances installed. Her eyes looked at the litany of gadgets that littered the front of the large refrigerator and wondered why any person would need a coffee maker in the freezer door. Fools and their money were so easily parted.
Stepping closer, she continued keeping Max in her peripheral vision as she glanced here and there about the room, her eyes tracking a random path until landing on the bright steel of the cleaver that lay inanimate on the counter behind Max. Temptation flashing beneath the lights of the room, her fingers curled into her palm, her fingernails carving half moon circles into her skin as she pondered what could be done with a weapon as sturdy as the one laying within her reach.
Taking a tentative step forward, she crept as silently as a mouse, and moved closer with her muscles clenched tightly over her body, waiting for him to notice. He neither turned, moved, nor said a word as she approached the fierce object that could lead her to salvation.
Reaching out with a shaking hand, she brushed her fingertips over the smooth surface of the handle, pulling back at the last minute for fear that he somehow knew what she was doing. But Max didn’t react, instead taking one dish from the soapy water to scrub it with the brush he held and rinse it beneath the steady stream of the faucet.
Inching her arm back towards the cleaver, she imagined imbedding the sharply honed blade into the back of his skull. Wrapping her thin fingers around the handle, she cringed to hear its weight slide across the counter as she found the strength to pick it up.
“Do you know how much force it would take to do whatever it is you’re planning on doing?”
The instant his voice broke the silence, her fingers released the handle, the heavy blade falling to clamor over the dark stone tile that sat pristine beneath her feet. She flinched at the sound of metal and wood against the floor and glanced down to see the stone hadn’t been broken.
Max glanced at her from over his shoulder, one dark, questioning brow perfectly arched over an intelligent set of sparkling blue eyes. “Do you know the strength it would take to actually kill me with that cleaver? I’m not sure you have it in you, Alice.” His chin nodded in the direction of the weapon that now lay useless on the floor. “Pick that up, would you? It needs to be washed, as well.”
She hated him for everything he’d already done to Delilah and her, but hated him more for the casual tone in which he spoke. As if he hadn’t just dragged her across the floor by her hair, or worse, the despicable violence he’d committed against a person she loved simply because she’d dared challenge him. A shiver ran up her spine and she imagined the same bruises that dotted her sister’s skin running a constellation of pain up her own until she was just as beaten and marked, marred by the large, strong hands of a man that had no concern for the devastation that remained in his wake.
When he glanced at her again, a smirk pulling at the corner of his sculpted lips, she bent over to retrieve the cleaver and walked it around the island to stand next to him at the sink. He plucked the weapon from her fingers and sunk it down into the soapy water before handing her a dishtowel to dry the unbroken plate he handed her next.
When they’d settled into a routine of washing, rinsing and drying the dishes and cookware, Alice thought she would scream if for nothing else but to break up the cruel silence that wrapped them both like a suffocating shroud.
“A lot of people think it’s easy to stab someone either in the chest or back, possibly the face or neck, and cause them to die from bleeding out.”
He spoke like he was discussing something as mundane as the weather, or a movie he’d seen on a lazy Friday night. He didn’t bother looking at her, his gaze held steady on the task at hand, the dishes that needed to be cleaned and polished to a shine so that they appeased his need for a clean and tidy house. Glancing at the plate in her hand, Alice hated the reflection that stared back at her, the lifeless eyes of a woman who had so easily submitted while barely putting up a fight.
“But it’s not easy. It takes knowledge on where to stab if you hope to disable your opponent. And it takes strength to sink the blade deep enough so that it punctures a vital organ or damages a muscle in such a way that renders the limb useless. Even then, if your opponent is strong enough, or has a high pain tolerance, the single stab will only serve to piss him off, so you have to keeping stabbing, over and over again, until you’re covered in his blood, a spray of thick, hot liquid against your skin that’s enough to make any decent person vomit from having committed the act.”