“Ah, we have no oatmeal, mademoiselle. You have eaten all of it. We can purchase more at the next grocery collection, but until then you must choose something different. What else can I fix for you?”
“Um?” She presses her lips together like she’s deep in thought. “Do you have grits?”
I suppress a smirk at the disgust on Pierre’s face. “No, we do not have grits.”
She swallows, appearing anxious for a few seconds before she quickly regains her composure. She’s definitely less guarded around Pierre than she is with me, and I can’t ignore how much that stings, even if I understand the reason. Pierre is not the sick, twisted fuck who bought her at an auction where other sick, twisted fucks go to play. Sometimes, I catch her looking at me, like she can’t quite understand how I could do what I did, and it’s almost enough to make me tell her the true reason I was there. But if she knew, then she might hate me more than she already does.
While she’s obviously aware I’m in the room, Imogen seems to buy my pretense that I’m focused only on my work. I would dearly like to understand why she’s so anxious about choosing breakfast, and what the hell that says about how she’s spent the last eighteen years of her life—eighteen years during which I should have been protecting her.
“Wh-what would you suggest, Pierre?” she eventually asks.
His face lights up in a way I haven’t seen for a long time, and he claps his hands together. “I would suggest pancakes with bacon and a healthy soupçon of maple syrup.” He makes a chef’s kiss gesture.
Imogen’s eyes go wide. “For breakfast?”
He scowls. “When else would one eat such a delicacy?”
Without waiting for her reply, he starts mumbling happily to himself while he begins to prepare the meal. Then his mumbling turns to singing, a French ditty I haven’t heard from him in as long as I can remember.
From the corner of my eye, I can see her observing him working, a soft smile playing on her lips. Every so often I feel her looking at me instead, even though I can’t be sure. But when I risk stealing a glance at her, I catch her studying me and our eyes lock. She bites down on her lip, like she was just caught doing something she shouldn’t be, but neither of us look away. We stare at each other across the kitchen, neither of us speaking while something unexpected and overly familiar plays out between us. Perhaps she doesn’t hate me at all. No, there is something much more nuanced than that between us. This is something more than the obedience she was taught to show. More than the captive trying to please her captor. It’s raw and primal and hopeless to ignore. Her green eyes sparkle and I find it impossible to look away and break the connection. Her breathing grows heavier and a flush creeps over her cheeks as the few seconds seem to stretch out for eternity.
“Bon appétit!” Pierre walks between us, severing the connection as he places her plate down in front of her.
I’m pretending to look at my screen again when he moves, but I can feel her eyes on me still, her gaze like a caress on my skin. Pierre breaks the silence once more, encouraging her tomangebefore demanding to know whether his pancakes are better than her oatmeal. She tells him that yes, they are. Then she proceeds to clear her plate and I try to tune out the soft satisfied little sounds she makes when she does.
The nights get cold inside the house despite the spring weather and Pierre has lit the fire in the library. Shesits beside it on the worn oxblood leather armchair, her feet tucked beneath her and her eyes glued to the book in her hands as she reads by the pale lamplight. The glow from the flames flickers over her face, highlighting the plump bow of her lips. I pause in the doorway, my mask tucked away in my pocket. Even if she were to look up, she wouldn’t see my face in the shadows.
I recall her with Pierre earlier today, how her smile reached her eyes when she tasted her pancakes with bacon. The soft humming sounds she made when she licked syrup from her lips and how much I wanted to do the same. I long to kiss her. To part her lips with my tongue and taste her sweetness. To trail my mouth over her skin, until I reach all the places where I absolutely shouldn’t touch. And despite how utterly wrong those thoughts are, I cannot stop them. I no longer even try. As long as I simply think, and don’t act upon them, then she will come to no harm. I may die from a severe case of blue balls, but she’ll be just fine.
“You’ll strain your eyes reading in the darkness,” I say, my voice rough from lack of use—the mask will do that, creating more than just a physical barrier. Some days I walk through this house barely speaking more than a few words. Today I’ve spent most of my day in the basement, chasing leads. When I realized it was almost nine, the time she usually drifts off to bed, I couldn’t stop myself from coming to see her. Hearing her voice. Inhaling her scent. From filling my senses with everything that’s her, like an addict in need of his next fix.
She lifts her head, a fleeting look of surprise alighting her delicate features, and like the flames it quickly shifts into something different. Something dangerous. She places her book on the table beside her and stands before slowly crossing the room, like a cautious cub unsure if a strange lion is an ally or a threat. The only sounds in the room are the crackling fire and the soft padding of her bare feet on the wooden floor.
I should walk out now and let her remain in the light insteadof allowing her into the shadows with me. All kinds of bad things can happen in the shadows.
I don’t leave and she doesn’t stop walking toward me, not until she’s so close that I feel the heat from her skin through our clothes. She tilts her head, studying me too intently, her green eyes narrowed as she tries to see what cannot be seen. I remain in the shadow, my face obscured by the darkness, but she still sees me. Not my face, but my blackened soul, in a way that no one ever has before. And my fierce little angel doesn’t run when confronted with the monster. I feel exposed in a way I’m unused to, but I can’t move. In fact, I don’t want to, unable to back away from her scrutinous gaze.
“I’m used to reading in the dark, sir. My eyes are accustomed to it. I see more than most.”
Yes, she most assuredly does. “And what do you see now, Imogen?”
“I’m not sure yet, sir.” Her voice is a breathy whisper, and the way she’s gazing up at me now, eyes wide and pleading, makes me want to reach out and touch her. Kiss her. Claim her.
I allow myself the sin of reaching out and letting the pad of my thumb sweep over her cheek, just enough to feel the soft silk of her skin and commit it to memory. Instead of flinching, she turns her cheek into my touch, showing no reluctance or fear. And I could let her in so easily. Drop the mask and let her see the man she thinks I am. But I’m not the Lincoln Knight she thinks she knows, and she should fear me.
“I’m the monster they say I am, Imogen. Don’t ever forget that.”
Her lips part but she doesn’t make a sound. Instead she lets unspoken words hang in the air between us. One wrong move and I will take her. Devour her whole. I want her so badly it terrifies me, more than anything ever has before. I yearn to run my hands over every single curve and commit every one to memory. To take her mouth in a bruising kiss—the kind that musicianswill write songs about for centuries. She is beauty personified, but my attraction to her is so much more than that. It’s not just the way her green eyes see into my soul, but the way she sees the whole world. She’s been through the fires of hell yet she’s like molded glass, only strengthened by the flames.
But this is wrong.
I drop my hand, feeling the loss of her warmth so acutely that it sends a shiver down my spine. She blinks. Once. Twice. Confused.
“Good night, Imogen.”
I sink back into the hallway and leave her to the sanctuary of her books. They will never betray her. My foot is on the bottom stair when I hear her soft voice say, “Good night, Lincoln.”
It almost makes me falter. It would take mere seconds for me to go back for her, scoop her into my arms and carry her to my bed, where I would spend the rest of this night tasting and touching and fucking her.
