Whatwasthat?
What had he done?
What the hellhappened?
Lucien sat forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He buried his face in his hands, his chest rising and falling as he sucked in lungfuls of air. His fingers flexed in his hairline like claws.
His chin tipped up, eyes glowing with fury. “How can you be so brazen...soshameless?”
“Shameless?” I blinked, trying to reboot my brain. “I don’t—”
“I told you I’llneverbe with anyone in that way.”
“But...butyoukissedme.”
“Get out,” he whispered, quietly, murderously.
Scrambling to my feet, I struggled to understand how I was at fault. “But—”
“LEAVE!”
Whisper leapt to his paws at Lucien’s roar.
My stress levels reached their limit, and I staggered.
I wanted to clear my name—to ensure this hadn’t gone irreversibly wrong, but I almost fainted there and then.
Lucien shot upright, clutching his chest as the metal disc beeped and flickered red. He grunted and almost fell to his knees. “GO! Get the fuck out of here!”
I fled.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
WHAT THE HELL DID I DO?
What sort of curse had she put on me to make me abandon my strict promiseneverto go near a woman in this nightmarish place?
The moment her fingers had touched me, I’d lost all control.
The first press of her thumbs on the cords of my neck made every nerve in my body seize. The soft kneading of her fingers along my shoulders eroded all my fight. And the delicious scratch of her fingernails over my scalp completely undid me.
I was used to agony—its bite, its burn, its never-ending misery.
But her?
Her touch had been different.
She touched me as a human, as aman, and not the commodity I’d been turned into.
She didn’t deliver conditioned and expected pain but foreign and unknown pleasure.
I hadn’t even known what pleasurewasuntil that moment. Until that terrifying, horrifying, wonderful fucking moment where she’d draped over me and pressed her cheek to mine.
She was the first person to actuallygiveme something with no strings, agendas, or expectations.
I couldn’t handle it.
I couldn’t accept it—far too conditioned to pay a price I could never afford.
