He was ugly and ruined and deserved nothing but to go to hell.
I turned my head and pressed my face into my shoulder to cover my eyes, my hands twisting against the covers as the pounding continued to boom inside my head, making me feel sick and dizzy, despite lying down for however many days it had been.
The sound of the door opening several minutes later piqued my interest but I didn’t dare open my eyes. However, the room suddenly darkened and I cracked an eye open, watching as he tacked a heavier sheet against the window.
He wore a T-shirt now, but my vision was blurry as I tried to focus on the emblem on the back. He turned to face me, his mask back in place as he came toward me. He placed two tablets on my tongue and unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water before placing it almost gently against my lips and tipping it down my eager throat. I swallowed and swallowed, and every time he stopped I begged him for more until I’d drunk the entire bottle and my stomach swished with water.
We sat there in silence for what felt like a minute but must have been much more because the pain in my head began to subside. He reached over and unlocked my handcuffs from the bedframe before pulling my arms in front of me and clipping them both together.
My shoulders screamed in pain and I whimpered until he placed his rough hands on me and began to massage the pain away. I had no idea why he was suddenly being so nice to me, but I was too tired and in pain to care right then. I’d like to say, as he helped me to my feet, that I was thinking of an escape plan, but I wasn’t. All I cared about was the way my muscles ached from misuse and my hip bones clicked and creaked as he walked me across the room. My jeans felt stiff around me and the pee smell that I’d started to get used to grew stronger, mixing with my sweat and making me feel sick.
The dark angel led me out of the room by the cuffs, our steps slow as I got used to walking again. I stumbled, wobbling on unsteady legs, but he caught me every time. There wasn’t much to see in the hallway—every door was closed and there were no windows—so I focused on him and me; his rough hands on me, his strength holding me.
He led me into a bathroom, and I could have cried at the sight of a warm bubble bath.
“Is that for me?” I asked, thinking I’d full-on have a breakdown if he said no.
“Warm baths always help my head,” he replied bluntly, like I’d asked a stupid question.
We stopped by the edge of the bath and he turned to face me, his gaze working up and down my body like he was assessing how he was going to do this. I did not want to get naked in front of him, but I really wanted to get out of those clothes. And he was right: a warm bath always helped my migraines too.
“You fight me and I’ll drown you,” he bit out. “You try to escape and I’ll chain you to that bed and leave you here to starve to death. You scream and I’ll cut tongue out of that pretty mouth of yours and feed it to my dog just for the hell of it. Got it?” His cold eyes bored into mine and I nodded slowly, wincing against the pain in my head as I did.
I did get it, but that didn’t stop my mind still working out any possible escape routes. He let go of my hands and stalked toward the bathroom door before locking it, and I inwardly cursed him as he placed the key on the chain around his neck.
He grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head, and my throat bobbed as I swallowed.
“What are you doing?” I asked, hating that fear laced my words.
“Getting undressed,” he replied as he kicked off his boots and slid his jeans down his muscled thighs.
“Why?” I pleaded, panic pebbling my skin.
He stood there in just his mask and a pair of tight boxer shorts, his muscled body lean and hard, and every woman’s wet dream. But I’d seen the monster behind the angel and knew how cruel he could be.
His thumbs hooked into his waistband and he shoved the shorts down his legs, and I quickly turned away from him, ignoring his chuckle.
“Because,” he said, his voice coming closer until it was only an inch from me and making me jump. His words tickled the sensitive skin behind my ear, making my traitorous nipples harden, “I can’t trust you in the bath alone, Penny. Who knows what trouble you’d get into.”
He couldn’t trust me in it alone?
Jesus Christ, what did he think I was going to do? Drown myself? Make myself a shank from soap and water and use it to escape from him? His words pissed me off, yet I couldn’t stop my body from responding to his proximity. To his masculine scent and the heat that burned from him. What the hell was going on?
His large hands moved around me, his breath on my neck, and I looked down, watching as he took the hem of my shirt in his large hands and began to slowly tear it up the middle. Slowly slowly, like his own personal torture.
“Stop it,” I begged, my voice sounded strange, heady, filled with desire. “Please.”
Did I mean that?
Did I really want him to stop?
Yes, of course I did…and yet my body continued to ignore my brain’s hatred and disgust for him. No man controlled me. No man owned me. My body and my mind were mine and mine alone. And yet, somehow, this stranger, this dark angel, was beginning to mold me into someone I hardly recognized.
I was a Benite.
I was a strong, capable woman and I bowed to no one. The fire was in my blood to fight and scratch and die defending myself and my family name. Yet there I stood, a simpering woman, pliable in that man’s capable hands.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, Penny,” he replied, his voice husky in my ear. “Not unless you force my hand.”
