“You’re a monster,” she said. “You’re all monsters.”
He made a soothing noise and she hated him for that. How dare he burn her sister’s letters in front of her and then turn around and comfort her like his hands weren’t coated in blood? All these soft touches, they were like the springs of a cage that could snap shut at any time. He just wanted her to go along with these sick sparrow games so he could fuck—and probably kill—her.
She looked at his intent face, those mottled bronze eyes. He’d barely touched her at all but she knew that wouldn’t last. There was a tension in him she was already starting to recognize, one that would only be satisfied by one thing.
(Love me)
“If you’re going to force me,” she choked out, when he leaned closer and she felt the sting of his breath on her chapped lips, “just get it over with.”
“Force you to do what?” he murmured, not moving.
Nadine looked away.
“I see.” He trailed his fingers along her jaw, slowly exerting pressure until she was looking back at him. “I think I’d rather have you beg me for it.”
“No.” She stood up and since he didn’t back away, she ended up stumbling ungracefully over the chair in her haste to get away from him. “You can’t make me do that for you again.”
“Can’t I?” he said ironically, and she blanched.
Cal sat on the edge of her bed, looking almost sorry. But when he spoke, his words were cold.
“You can choose how I have you, just like how you can choose to be my sparrow. But all roads lead to me, darling, so I really do suggest you make the right choice. You won’t get a better ally than me in this house.” His mouth hardened, with just a touch of callous arrogance. “I promise I won’t think less of you for giving in to me.”
???????
Choices were funny things, Nadine thought. They could take you halfway across the state, looking for a sister who had vanished after marrying a beast she thought was a prince.
They could cause you to tie yourself to a man you knew was a murderer, watching countless others fall to his lust for blood while imagining yourself immune from quenching it.
They could have you on your knees, pleasuring a man you hated but who still got you wet.
He was big—big enough that she couldn’t take him all the way. It made her choke to try. Cal didn’t seem to mind; he cradled the back of her skull loosely, hair streaming through his fingers, which he had gathered up to use as reins when he wanted to pull her head back.
Which he did, instead of letting her finish him off. He scooped her up beneath her knees and dropped her on the bed. With two tugs—shirt up, pants down—he was inside her, skin to skin from chest to hip, as he fucked her with their clothes still on, sucking the taste of him from her tongue.
Starting with her mouth had made his entry as smooth as glass, but the angle was slightly different and the first thrust made her cry out. “I’m sorry it hurts, Nadine,” he whispered, gently stroking her face. “But this is all I have to give you, and I love seeing you try to take it.”
Nadine closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Yes, Daddy,” she said, in a voice tight with loathing.
She thought his eyes might have softened before she turned away, but the sex still hurt anyway.
As the afternoon progressed, she lost more of her clothes. Her pants came off when he held her down by the hips and did things that made her cover her mouth to hold in her screams. Her shirt came off after that, when he got his second wind, and made her ride him, holding her hands loosely behind her back and fucking her in short, shallow strokes. By the time he was finished, she was naked, with only the sheets to preserve her modesty.
She clung to them, with the fabric half-pooled over her hips. Cal gave her an appreciative, lingering look as he got out of bed to pick up his pants, unbothered by his nudity.
“This room might have been designed with you in mind, little sparrow. The gilt and the turquoise are both striking against your skin.”
Nadine hugged the sheet to her breasts, wondering if the family’s penchant for hides extended to the human variety. Was there a room somewhere in this place papered in the skin of young women? She shuddered violently, and felt a fresh surge of tears building at her eyes.
A line formed between Cal’s eyebrows as he took in her response. She thought he might demand for her to bare herself to him, and for a moment he seemed tempted. But then he gave her a tight smile before heading through the tapestry door and into his own bedroom.
She sneaked a look at him when his back was turned. His legs and thighs were as toned as the rest of him, taut and powerful: a lean runner’s build. Fucking someone told you a lot about their body, Nadine thought. His hair was close-cropped, longer on top than it was on the sides, exposing the pink puckered scars on the nape of his neck. He also had a birthmark on his right shoulder blade, and another on his right hip, just above where the black curls of his pubic region began to thicken around the base of his uncircumcised cock.
His hazel eyes were somewhere between amber and bronze, studded with those strange motes of red, and even more hypnotic up close. He kept his nails short, but his fingers were long, and he could easily encircle her neck in one handspan, or hold both of hers in one of his, which she knew because he had done both those things.
And probably killed people with them.
Cal came back into the room wearing his typical uniform: dark slacks and a button-down shirt. Tonight it was black and red, which made him look like a fallen angel. Particularly when he gave her another one of those heated looks and said, “I can’t take you to dinner like that.”
