“I am ready.”
“No, you’re not.” His voice turned steel. “You’re still breakable. I saw it last night and she… won’t be what you expect.”
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle!” I snapped, stepping toward him. The wind howled louder.
“I’m not deciding. I’m protecting you.”
“From what? Yourself? I don’t need your protection, Zagreus. I need the fucking truth.”
He stepped in closer. Shotguns were tossed onto the bench, and now he was inches from me.
“No,” he growled. “You need someone to blame for your tears and ache. And I’ll be that. I’ll be the villain. But I won’t let you meet her until I decide that.”
My hands trembled. “I’m not weak. I can handle her.”
It came out as a whisper rather than a statement. He looked at me as if I had just proven his point. And then, like a man undoing centuries of restraint, he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to his chest. My palms found his naked chest, and I looked up at him wide-eyed. His hand gripped my jaw, the other buried in my waist, and he was so tall my neck strained.
“Ask me for anything, Dolcezza,” he murmured, so close his breath danced over my lips. “Jewels? I’ll pour oceans of diamonds at your feet. You want silk dresses? I’ll drape you in sin and satin. You want stars? I’ll pluck them from the sky and make them beg to orbit you.”
His thumb dragged across my bottom lip, slow and dirty.
“But don’t ask me for the truth. You’ll choke on it.”
My breath hitched.
He tilted his head, eyes flicking down to my mouth with a hunger that was both reverent and ravenous.
“You think you’re ready to bleed with answers? You flinch when I breathe too close.” His voice dipped lower, filthier. “Your body betrays you, little wife. You say you hate me, while your thighs clench when I touch you. You want the truth?” His hand splayed across my spine, dragging me flush against him. I could feel him. All of him.
He leaned closer, lips brushing the shell of my ear.
“The truth is... I dream about ruining you. Slowly. Thoroughly. In every way your precious little soul thinks it can survive.”
My heart stuttered.
His mouth ghosted down my cheek, not kissing but branding.
“I’ll be the villain in every fairy tale you were ever told, if it means I get to keep you breathing. I’ll lie, I’ll cage, I’ll withhold. But I won’t let you break just to satisfy your curiosity.”
I swallowed hard. My legs trembled.
“And until I say you’re ready... You don’t get to see her.” His lips finally pressed to mine. A threat. A promise. A vow sealed in heat and silence.
“Ask for anything else, Dolcezza,” he whispered. “But don’t ask me to let you burn before I’ve even taught you how to rise from ash.”
I panted and shook my head. “Anything, you say?”
His eyes twitched and I realised he regretted saying anything, because what I was about to say would make him regret everything. But for some reason, he licked his lips, bit them, and caressed my cheek. “Anything.”
I took a deep breath, swallowed, and opened my mouth. “Then let me paint again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Wounds That Don’t Bleed
He stared at me.
There was nothing pure in his eyes. He never stared at me like a man staring at a woman, but like a god staring at something he created in a fit of rage and then couldn’t stop worshipping—that kind of stillness, that kind of thunderous silence.
