I didn’t hear the turn of the lock or the opening of the cell door, but suddenly Tristan was in front of me. His hands cupped my face, forcing me to look up at him. His dark eyes burrowed into mine, seeing right through to the pain deep inside, and for a moment, I thought he was angry with me.
“What the fuck are you doing to me?” he whispered. Then his mouth crashed onto mine.
I tasted the saltiness of my tears and the sweetness of iced tea as he kissed me hard. Kissed me violently. His short mustache and beard rough against my tender skin.
As the heaviness of my emotions spiraled into desire so fierce that it threw me off balance, I grabbed onto his arms to steady myself, digging my fingers into the muscles of his forearms through his crisp, white shirt.
Tristan stiffened, groaning like an injured animal. Breaking off the kiss, he pressed his forehead to mine, his ragged breaths warm on my face as the tips of his fingers dug into my skull. But he didn’t push me away.
It took a second for my lust-filled mind to realize what I’d done. I immediately released his arms, my hands floundering in the air for a minute, not knowing what to do or where to go, until I finally tucked them under the hem of my shirt. “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “Shit. I’m so sorry. You surprised me and I just…” The horrific, nearly inhuman sound he’d made echoed in my ears, and I knew it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I’d never heard anything so filled with pain and fear and helplessness.
I held perfectly still, his uneven breaths hitting my face. I didn’t know what else to do or say, so I just waited, my heart breaking for this man who was once a little boy who’d been so horribly abused that years later something as simple as the touch of another person would send him spiraling back to that place. I didn’t want to be here, but I didn’t want to hurt him either.
“I want you to touch me,” he confessed. “So fucking bad.” The words were said so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.“Fucking hell, Luna.” He lifted his head slightly, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“It isn’t your fault.”
The pressure from his fingers lessoned and he released me, taking a step back.
Even though he was still within touching distance, I felt his withdrawal all the way to my bones, and it made me want to cry all over again.
His eyes traveled over my face. “I don’t like to see you like this.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, new ones mixing in with the old. “I just hate it in here so much,” I told him softly. “I can’t sleep. And my entire body hurts from sitting on the floor. But the toilet isn’t much more comfortable. Can I at least have a chair? A mattress? A pillow? Something?”
A haunted expression crossed his features. He shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t change it.”
My mind spun, trying to understand. “The cell? You can’t change the cell?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw as he gave a quick shake of his head.
So he wasn’t trying to punish me by making me live like this. That was something, at least. “Can I come out of the cell?”
“No.”
Struggling to keep my cool, I asked, “Why not?”
“Because when you’re in here, I know that you’re safe.”
“But you keep Luca safe, right?”
He narrowed his eyes. After a long pause, he nodded once.
“And he’s not in this cell. So, couldn’t you keep me safe, too?” I couldn’t tell if he was listening to me or not. “You can keep me safe,” I repeated. “Even if I’m not in here.”
His dark eyes bore into mine. “You’ll run.”
“What if I swear to you that I won’t?” I was surprised to discover that I meant it. I wasn’t sure why, but I couldn’t seem to stomach the thought of deceiving him. Maybe because so many other people in his life had. And I knew what it felt like to be exploited by the people who were responsible for raising you.
“Why should I believe you?” he asked. “I know you don’t understand why I did this. Why I have you in here. I know you don’t want to be with me, despite the way your body reacts.” His eyes dropped to my puckered nipples, my hips, and back to my face. “No. You’d run again the first chance you got.”
“I’m also a woman who keeps her promises,” I insisted. “I ended up with Gino because I made a bet and I lost, so I lived up to my promise. I didn’t run until my life was in danger, which I think is understandable. I wouldn’t break a promise I made to you, either, Tristan. And I swear to you I won’t run. I won’t go anywhere until you tell me it’s safe for me to leave.”
