Sawyer turns his head and stares off absently. I expect him to throw something back at me, but he looks lost. He looks…
“Are you afraid?” I ask, wrapping my arms tighter around myself.
He peers back at me but doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. His face says it all. He’s shaken by something.
“Come here.” He crooks his finger at me and lays his legs back down, sitting up straighter.
For several moments, I just stare at him. He doesn’t look dangerous or sadistic, but I’ve learned that he can be.
What would he do if I said no?
“Please.” He offers his hand. I try not to think too hard about it. Try not to remind myself of earlier, but I can’t get past the calm look in his eyes while he watched me struggle for breath. My fingertips drift to my throat on impulse.
Slowly, I shift toward him and let him take me into his arms. He spins me around and plants my back to his chest like it was before. He isn’t obviously aroused, but that’s hardly comforting. He could be about to drown me for all I know.
He hugs me close to him while planting a kiss on my head. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?”
I don’t realize my shoulders have tensed until Sawyer’s expert touch makes its way to them, massaging the deep ache woven into my muscles. I’m used to being sore… this is next level.
“You must get told that all the time,” he continues, working his way to my chest. He rubs the muscles there while I let out a shaky breath. My breasts move with every knead of his fingers, nipples tingling as I wait for his hands to dip, for his palms to grope me.
“Not really,” I say just so he knows I’m not rendered speechless. That his touch doesn’t have the power to freeze my mind the way it does my body.
“No?”
I clear my throat when his hands dip just a centimeter lower, massaging the tops of my breasts. For a moment, I forget what he asked.
My appearance…
He must be kidding.
“I believe many men find me intimidating. The rest are unsettled by my condition.”
“Your condition?”
My head turns at that but not quite enough to look at him. Something cuts me off, an invisible cord jerking me to a stop before I can meet his eyes.
He doesn’t know?
“I was born with albinism. It’s a condition where?—”
“I know what it is,” Sawyer says, hands sliding back to my shoulders to begin the slow descent all over again. “I don’t know that I’d call it acondition,but you’re… striking. For sure.”
A kiss of heat touches my face, but I don’t let myself read into what that means. As if I should care what Sawyer thinks of me.
“You know your eyes look red in the sunlight?” he asks.
“Yes. I think that’s the unsettling part.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever come across an albino before.”
My lips draw tight as I let the statement hang in the air. Analbino. As if I’m a different species—an exotic creature even the man with hundreds of victims hasn’t hunted.
HowspecialI am to be sorare.
“I think you’re gorgeous,” he goes on, his thumb trailing my collar bone. “Even when your eyes turn red.”
Even when your eyes turn red.
