A dress hung on the door, a gorgeous cream-colored dress. Vines crawled over the fabric, crimson roses in full bloom, the spots so red that they reminded me of fresh blood. Red roses were placed in a vase next to the bed. So was jewelry I hadn’t seen before—earrings and a matching rosary.
He was going to dress me up before he killed me. Recreating the scene from the boxes he’d sent.
The scent of roses invaded my senses—it purled in the air with the steam from the bath water, and my lungs felt clogged with the smell I’d always associated with…love.
“Get in,”he ordered in Spanish, pushing me toward the basin.
Literally doing as he said, I went to step in with all my clothes on. He yanked me back so hard, my back collided with his chest. He used Brando’s knife to cut the clothes away, and once I was stripped, he helped me into the water.
It was the most humiliating moment of my life; it was followed by such a deep sense of panic that I convulsed in intervals.
He didn’t touch me, though his eyes made the act extremely intimate, as though he were.
“You are even more beautiful when you cry,” he said softly.
I hadn’t even noticed. I was so numb with fear and humiliation that I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, like I’d melted and became one with the steam, my soul drifting above my head, waiting for the right time to settle back in.
The fact that I was not moving irritated him after a minute, and he told me,“Wash yourself clean! But do not get your hair wet.”
Methodically, I did, the actions second nature.
If there was one thing to be thankful for, it was for how deep the basin was. He could only see my breasts, nothing more. As much as I wanted to deny it, not only were the tears coming from being exposed to this monster, but from the sting of the cut on my chest.
The blood tainted the water red, swirls of it rinsing with my washing, entering the cut and making it burn. It was worse than I’d thought. It needed stitches. The hot water softened the wound and made it bleed fresh again.
Once he was satisfied, he handed me a towel, and I wrapped it around myself, entire body still convulsing from fear and the sudden cold. I hardly felt alive, my mind beginning to shut down in the face of what my body faced.
Then I remembered what Brando had said.Bleeding reminds us that we’re still alive.And I was. And I was going to cling to my faith with or without the cross around my neck.
“You smell—” He sniffed at my hair, a deep lungful, letting it out slowly, almost savoring. “You smell clean. Like a rose. Did you enjoy the gifts I sent for you?”
I couldn’t even find the courage to speak, nor could I control the involuntary muscle spasms shaking me like a rag doll. Not only were my nerves shot, but the air was so cold that my body caused steam to waft around us from the residual warmth of the water. But it was quickly losing the battle to the severe cold.
I felt like a wilted petal, searching for the warmth of the sun, but instead finding the bottom of this man’s boot, being crushed into snow.
“You do not have to speak.” His voice lowered, his fingertip caressing from shoulder to shoulder as he moved around me. “Not now. But I expect you to be different…” He let that thought trail as he placed a warm kiss on my neck.
He took the dress down and handed it to me. “I have seen enough. For now. We will get better acquainted after some dinner, ah? After, we will take a walk out in the snow…”
“And t-then you w-will take m-my h-heart?”
“Will you give it to me, vixen?”
“G-give my h-heart t-to y-you?” I knew damn well what he meant, but feigned innocence.
He laughed. “You are peculiar. I like it.” He touched the cut, pressing in on it, making me gasp. “Think about it, ah? His heart for yours. You stay with me—forever, by choice. That will assuredly kill him, just as well as your death would.”
This was what had stopped him from killing me as soon as we arrived at this cabin. The decision that had forked in front of our chalet, making him indecisive. He thought that maybe he could kill Brando by keeping me.
Turning, he went to grab for a rose in the vase, and by the time he turned back, the dress was covering my nakedness, only my arms needing to be slipped in. I hadn’t noticed that the dress crisscrossed in the front.
Of course, so the knife could plunge in without hinderance.
His eyes flared, and I skated on dangerous ground.
He was confident that whatever he felt, I did too, and he was right. There was no way to even block him out if I tried. He wasn’t only allowing me to feel his feelings, but force feeding them to me.
Though I felt Brando was close, it was hard not to get lost in this—nefarious game. My hand went to grab for the cross, a habit, and not finding it there, I swallowed down the whimper threatening to escape from my quivering lips.
