I'll Never Let You Go (Morgans of Nashville) Read Free

rested solely with him. All she controlled was her words. The truth. If she died tonight, Philip would know her heart. “I don’t love you.”
    He flinched, as if the statement bit like a rattler. “You’ve been brainwashed. Your mother and your friends filled you with lies. Poisoned you against me.”
    “I don’t love you.” Defiance pricked as sharp as the knife’s tip. “You don’t own me.”
    Pain deepened the lines of his face, even as his teeth bared into a snarl. He lowered his lips to her ear. Warm breath against her skin raked over her nerves.
    “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you. Why can’t you understand that?”
    Out of habit, not love, she raised her hand to his muscled arm, her touch gentle, as if soothing a beast. “Philip, this isn’t love.”
    He burrowed his face into the crook of her neck. His hand fisted her blond hair. “It’s love. It is.”
    “No, Philip.” A pathetic lie crept from the shadows. “You deserve better.”
    A fist pounded on the apartment’s front door. “Ms. Carson! Ms. Carson! This is the police!”
    The officer’s voice cut through the door and relief collided with tension. The cops!
    He flinched. “Shh. It’s just us, the way it’s supposed to be.”
    Her fingers hardened into a grip. “Help me! He’s going to kill me!”
    Philip rose up, eyed her, disappointment mingling with anger. “Carson. You told the operator your name was Carson. You took your maiden name back.”
    The anger-coated words stoked a flicker of guilt. His temper, abuse, was not her fault, but even after all the pain, he could so easily press the button that triggered guilt. Her weakness shamed her. “The cops are here. Go! Run while you can, Philip. Leave through the window. Just go! You don’t want to go to jail.”
    He pressed the knife’s tip to the hollow of her neck. “That would suit you just fine.”
    “I don’t want to see you in jail.” She prayed the directness in her gaze covered the lie. “You helped so many people as a cop. Let someone help you.”
    “I don’t need a doctor. I only need you!”
    “Ms. Carson!” the officer shouted. “Are you in there?”
    Nothing would sway Philip. Nothing. “Yes!” she screamed.
    Philip winced and pressed the tip of the knife to her neck. The tip scraped skin and drew blood.
    How much longer before the cop got into her apartment? How long to slice skin? Seconds?
    Blood flickered along the narrow column of her neck and dripped on her hair. “Please.”
    “We’re meant to be together.” Desperation tinged the anger.
    “Just leave. While you can.”
    He dragged the tip of the knife over her belly, etching a red scratch along her milky-white midline.
    Fear contorted her gut as keys rattled in the front door. Had the cops gotten the apartment manager’s master key? Hurry! A door opened but caught on the security chain. Her life depended on just a few more seconds.
    Philip wiped the blood trickling from her neck with his forefinger and smeared it across his lips and forehead. “We live and die together . ”
    He raised the knife and plunged it into her gut. At first shock and then agony sliced and burned through her insides as she stared into blue eyes that danced with satisfaction. He pulled the knife back and drove it down toward her neck. It skidded over her collarbone before he sliced her cheek and her arms.
    Cops pounded on the door. “Ms. Carson!”
    Screaming, she grabbed the blade. The edge cut her palms. Blood gushed from her hands as he pulled the blade free and raised it again. She lost count of how many times he stabbed her before he rose breathless and stood over her. He stared a long moment at the blood blooming on the bedsheets. With his rage spent, his eyes filled with fresh tears. “What have I done? God, I’m sorry.”
    In the next instant, he vanished through the window, leaving her alone and dying. Stunned by pain, she lay still, feeling the warm blood pool around her body.
    A scream caught in