ANNA
"Get on the bed."
Darius's command cut through the silence the moment we crossed the threshold. No preamble. No tenderness.
I stopped in the center of the room, my bare feet sinking into plush carpet. "No."
A lie. We both knew it.
He moved behind me, close enough his breath stirred the hair at my nape. "No?"
"I'm not—" My voice cracked. "I can't be another thing you take."
His fingers found the belt of the robe, tugging it loose with one sharp pull. The cashmere whispered against my skin as it loosened. "You think I'm taking?"
"Aren't you?" I wrapped my arms around myself, trapping the edges of the robe to hold it closed. The necklace was gone, but the phantom pressure still pressed against my throat. "You always take."
"Look at me."
I didn't want to. Looking at him made everything harder. Made the want sharper, the self-hatred deeper.
His hand closed around my jaw, firm but not cruel, turning my face to his. Those penetrating eyes stripped me bare more thoroughly than his hands ever could.
"I could," he said, voice dropping to growl. "I could lay you out on that bed and fuck you until you forget your own name. Until the only name on your lips is mine." His thumb traced my bottom lip. "Would you fight me?"
My breath stuttered. "Yes."
"Liar."
Heat flooded my cheeks because he was right. I wouldn't fight. I never fought when it mattered.
"But that's not what's happening tonight," he continued, releasing my jaw. He moved away, sitting on the edge of the bed, forearms resting on his thighs. Watching. Waiting. "Tonight, you choose."
Panic clawed up my throat, my trembling fingers reknotting the robe’s belt in a vain attempt to regain a semblance of calm. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Give me a choice." The words ripped out of me, raw and desperate. "Don't make me responsible for this. For wanting you when I shouldn't. For—" I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, but the tears came anyway. "I can't be the girl who wants the man holding her hostage. I can't be that broken."
"Anna—"
"My mother was right." The admission burned. "I ruin everything I touch. I'm weak and selfish and?—"
"Stop." Steel in that single word.
"Why?" I dropped my hands, meeting his gaze through blurred vision. "It's true. You know it's true. You're using it against her. Against me."
He stood, closing the distance between us in two strides. His hands framed my face, forcing me to look at him. "Your motheris a venomous bitch who wouldn't know strength if it slit her throat."
I flinched.
"You want to know what I see?" His grip tightened, not painful but inescapable. "I see a woman who looked at a bomb around her neck and still had the spine to defy me. Who breaks apart and puts herself back together every single time." His forehead pressed against mine. "That's not weakness, little one. That's survival."
"Then why does it feel like dying?" The question came out broken.
His jaw clenched, muscle ticking beneath scarred skin. "Because you're fighting the wrong battle."
"What battle should I be fighting?"
