Page 26 of Where Sinners Repent

My lip shakes, and I hate that this man can see how weak I am. “Why can’t they just leave me alone?”

The hand circling my wrist tightens, just as a tear falls past my lashes. His eyes follow it all the way down my cheek, something flickering in his eyes as it falls onto my bloodied hand.

Bringing his other hand up, he pushes his thumb into my cut, and I hiss at the flare of pain. His grip remains strong when I try to wrench my arm free, this thumb continuing to prod at the wound.

“The fuck...?” I grit out, shoving at him.

He doesn’t so much as flinch.

“You asked if I like your pain,” he murmurs, rubbing my blood between his fingers and staring at it hungrily. “My answer is yes.”

I gasp, eyebrows rising as he brings his thumb to his lips, licking the crimson red of his skin.

It shouldn’t make me feel the way it does.

Instead, I’m frozen to the spot.

His throat works as he swallows, never taking his eyes off mine. My pulse stutters.

“You’re...” I breathe, the words getting lodged in my throat.

Strange.

Twisted.

Beautiful.

Dangerous.

Kai lowers my hand, blood continuing to bead from the cut.

“Stay,” he demands again.

He wanders into my makeshift room, the small office with a tiny mattress. I barely have time to be embarrassed by it when he returns, holding my first aid kit, and drops it on a ruined bench beside us. Things spill from the container before he finds what he is looking for, and he tears open a packet with his teeth before taking my wrist. His skin is warm against mine.

I flinch as he cleans the cut with an alcohol wipe, hissing through my teeth. His thumb settles against the inside of my wrist, holding it steady.

As if he’s done this a thousand times before, he covers it with a dressing and wraps a bandage around it. His breath kisses my cheek, and I can’t help but inhale his scent. Leather and something muskier has my eyes wanting to roll back into my head.

Just his nearness makes my heart pick up its pace, distracted from the wreckage around us. His touch holds a heat in it, and I fight a shiver. It’s strange how this mundane little task feels more intimate than the way he took me last night.

Biting my lip, I gaze at him through my lashes. Tracing the soft freckle beneath his eye and his olive skin. His long lashes, and pitch-black eyes.

When he’s finished, he smooths the edge of the bandage flat with his thumb. Just one whisper of a touch.

Then his hand disappears, along with his warmth.

Reaching into his pocket, he dials someone and mutters a few words I can’t grasp. Because my attention turns to the FOUND YOU, LITTLE TRAITOR.

The taunt landed exactly as they expected it to.

Kai reaches for my baseball bat, sliding it into my hand.

“We’re going,” he says simply.

“Wait!” I gasp, backing away from him. “I can’t go to the apartment. Not yet. I’ll drive myself fucking crazy.”

Slowly, his head turns in my direction. Cold eyes search mine.