I narrow my eyes at him. “If I win, we stop for the day.”
“Sure, why not? Knock me over, and we can have fun,” he adds, smirking.
My pulse goes erratic at the suggestion in his comment.
Slowly, I pace towards him, circling and looking for an advantage. Sin doesn’t bother to track my movements.
He’s getting cocky.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” Sin calls.
He’s trying to rile me. I circle him again, thinking up a strategy, and don’t acknowledge his teasing.
I’m focused.
Sin keeps saying I’m slow. And after seeing how he moved today, I’m in complete agreement because no human can move as quickly as he does. The only way I’ve ever knocked this man down is by outsmarting him.
Sin hums impatiently. “Sorry, did you prefer psp psp psp?” he asks, making calling sounds for a cat.
I roll my eyes.
What I need is a distraction. Pretending to twist an ankle is too simple. He’d see right through that. I already tried to distract him with a kiss earlier, and that only resulted in him making me lose control, not the other way around. That still stings.
My plotting is interrupted, though, when Sin takes in my expression and cocks his head. “What are you feeling, kitten?”
I flush. “Honestly?”
Sin lets out a small chuckle, “Yes, that’s kind of the point.”
I want to crawl into a hole, but I answer him, “I’m feeling insecure. I forget every logical reason weshouldn’t be intimate when you touch me, and I don’t think I do the same to you.”
There, it’s said. The dark thought that is much better served stewing inside of one of my emotional boxes is now out in the open. This is mortifying.
Sin looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. That can’t be a good sign. “Do you think I’ve been in control every time I haven’t been able to keep my hands off you? When I marked you? You are the one thing that fucking shatters my control.”
He strides over to me, taking my head in his hands, and his eyes search mine for a moment before he continues, “The only reason I’m hanging on to the last vestiges of sanity is you.For. You. You’ve had your consent ripped away before, and I refuse to do that to you. Regardless of what I want, your comfort comes first, always. I want to do depraved things to you, kitten. To own you and claim you while giving you so much pleasure you can’t remember how to function. But only ever if that’s what you want.”
My heart teeters over the edge into free fall.
The prophecy said I would love a Destroyer, and I believe it. I’m going to love this man. Regardless of whether he can love me back or whether I’m even deserving of it, I’m a goner for him.
“Never think I don’t want you,” he whispers.
“Thank you,” I whisper back and lean into one of his hands. Simultaneously, I don’t hesitate to sweep my leg around his and trip him.
Sin lands with a thud, looking shocked. I grin down at him. “Looks like I win. No more training today.”
I may not have planned the distraction, but I saw my opening and took it. I offer my hand to Sin, helping him up.
“You’re a wicked thing, kitten,” he murmurs. But the words are said reverently, and I’m the opposite of insulted.
We spend the remainder of our afternoon reading in the sitting room. I don’t bother trying to sit on one of the single chairs again, knowing Sin will just pick me up and drag me on top of him again. Instead, I settle beside him on the couch, and Sin pulls my legs over him, tucking a fluffy blanket around me.
My immediate thought is that he’s going to initiate something, but to my surprise, he just sits with me, cuddling. It feels so foreign and yet so natural, all at once. I feel my heart fall just a little further before losing myself in my book.
He reads the book he borrowed from me while I read a fantasy romance with a ton of adventure. I’m calling it research. The heroine escapes from prison by befriending a dragon and convincing it to burn the place to the ground.
I should probably take up book annotating. These pages could translate to more survival skills on my end.
