“You should hate me.”The words came out broken, torn from somewhere deep.
“I should.”I held his gaze.“It’s not working.”
A sound escaped him.Not quite a groan, not quite a growl.He pulled me against him, hard, like he couldn’t help himself.Like his body had decided before his mind could intervene.
“I don’t know how to be anything else,” he admitted against my hair.“This is all I know.Taking.Claiming.Breaking things until they fit in my hands.”
“Then break me.”I felt him shudder at the words.“But stop pretending you don’t want to keep the pieces.”
He was silent for a long moment.Then he led me to the bathroom, one hand wrapped around my arm like he was afraid I’d disappear.Ran a warm cloth under the faucet.Cleaned his release from my skin with hands that were careful but not gentle.Clinical but thorough.Like I was something precious and filthy all at once.
When he was done, he turned me to face him.
“What I feel for you—” He stopped.His jaw worked, muscles jumping beneath the skin.“It’s not safe.For either of us.There are things about me you don’t know.Things that would make you run.”
“I’m already in your house.In your bed.Wearing your marks on my skin.”I held his gaze.“I’m not running.”
His eyes darkened.His hand came up to grip my chin, tilting my face up to his.
“You will,” he said quietly.“When you understand what I really am, you will run.And I’ll have to let you go.”
The words should have scared me.They didn’t.They just made me want to dig deeper, to find whatever monster he was hiding and prove I could face it.
He didn’t hold me that night.Didn’t pull me into his bed or wrap his arms around me.But when he walked me to my room, his hand stayed on the small of my back, possessive and warm.
At the door, he paused.His expression was unreadable, but his hand slid up to cup the back of my neck, thumb pressing against my pulse point.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said.“Seeing something that isn’t there.”
“Am I?”
His grip tightened.Then he released me, turned, and walked away without another word.
But I’d felt his pulse racing under my palm.I’d felt his control fracture.
Whatever he was hiding, whatever monster lived beneath that cold exterior, it wanted me as badly as I wanted him.
I slipped inside and closed the door.
But as I lay in my own bed, my skin still flushed and tender, I knew something had changed.He’d tried his hardest to make me hate him.
And I’d seen right through him.
The walls weren’t working.Not for him.Not for me.
19
RAPHAEL
I didn’t sleep.
The hours crawled past in silence, marked only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the restless pacing of the beast behind my ribs.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her.Standing there naked, my release still cooling on her skin, looking at me like she could see straight through to the rotting core of me.
You think if you’re cruel enough, I’ll hate you.
Her words echoed through my skull, relentless.I’d tried everything.Spanked her until her ass was red and hot under my palm.Made her come against her will, her body clenching around my fingers while she cursed my name.Finished on her back like she was nothing but a vessel for my pleasure, painting her skin with the evidence of my contempt.
Every weapon in my arsenal, deployed with surgical precision.
