All He Asks 1 Read Online Free Page B

is he?” Erik asks.
    It doesn’t escape me that his fists are clenched on either side of the door as he glares into the security monitor. The muscles in his forearms are bulging, his knuckles white, his shoulders drawn into hard lines of tension.
    His smoldering hatred is a shocking contrast to Raoul on the monitor, who has stepped from his car and gazes up at the security monitors, shielding his eyes from the sun. Light glints off of his hair. He is a ray of brilliant daylight against the shadows of the forests.
    Raoul’s calm only seems to make Erik angrier.
    Someone has violated the sanctity of his private property. An uninvited visitor. Someone from the publishing company.
    Anyone else would have known not to risk it—not for any reason. Erik Duke is worth as much money to Durand-Price as Sylvia Stone, and equally unpredictable in his own way.
    Erik has accrued enough wealth to quit publishing and spend the rest of his life in solitude. And his pride is a mercurial beast. Many days, it seems like he only allows the company to have his books because he has no reason not to.
    Having an editor show up at his doorstep when Erik has made it explicitly clear that he wants to be left alone could be the trigger he needs to never publish again.
    I lick my lips, try to remember how to speak. Dangerous as Raoul’s presence is, I can’t lie to Erik any more than I could dream of disobeying him.
    “That’s a new editor for Durand-Price. His name is, um, Raoul—Raoul Chance.” Erik’s gaze slices over to me and I feel like I’m an inch tall. Like I’ve done something wrong. I want to drop to my knees and apologize, beg him for forgiveness. “He wanted to talk to me after the meeting with Ms. Stone, but I left. He must have followed me. I didn’t think—I never would have—”
    “I don’t want him here.”
    Oh no, Erik really is angry at me. He’s still glaring at the monitor but it feels like I’m cornered.
    “I’ll make him leave.” I force a smile that I don’t feel in my heart. “Don’t worry about it.”
    My hand is on the knob for the front door when I feel the heat of Erik’s presence over my shoulder. Now I am cornered—he has me all but pinned against the door, his chest bare inches from my back, so close that he must feel the pounding of my pulse.
    “We’re going to write tonight,” Erik says, breath warm against the back of my neck. “You and me, we’re going to make a story together. As soon as you make this editor leave. We have a lot of work to do.”
    The way he says “work” evokes the heroes of his books. The tortured souls that populate the small towns of Maine, with all the twisted blackness rotting at the core of their hearts.
    “I can’t stay too long,” I say in that firm but polite tone I employ with Sylvia. “It’s a long drive back to the city for me. I’ll be happy to Skype with you tonight, but—”
    “No,” Erik interrupts. “You’re working with me tonight. In my office.”
    Now I really can’t breathe.
    He’s left no room to argue. And frankly…I don’t want to.
    “Your office?” It comes out as little more than a squeak.
    I’ve never been in his office. It’s the stuff of myth. If you search the internet for rumors—which I do, occasionally, because the gossip surrounding my clients is endlessly entertaining and endlessly wrong—then you’ll find many stories about what horrors Erik Duke has hidden in his basement office.
    They say that he has torture devices down there. That he has an iron maiden with the barest millimeters of clearance so that he can plan his stories from the embrace of the metal casket.
    I’m sure it’s all silliness, but who knows? Nobody has ever seen the room.
    I could be the first.
    More than that, he wants me to write with him… down there .
    The prospect is equal parts frightening and exhilarating.
    “Okay,” I whisper hoarsely.
    He lets me open the door to step outside.
    It should be easier to breathe once I’m not