Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Hanging behind a few dresses were silk pieces of lingerie.
They were blood red.
One of them was a gorgeous red baby doll nightdress. It went to my mid-thigh and wasn’t see-through but definitely looked like it wasn’t for going out.
With a smile, I looked over my shoulder and then back at the silk. I touched it with my fingertips and imagined how it would feel against his skin, maybe instead of hurting he’d feel pleasure.
I was doing this.
I wasn’t the same woman who had walked in these doors.
He’d made me different.
And I wondered as I slowly stripped out of my dress, if I knew all along, if that’s why I smiled when I was held captive.
Because I knew I would fall in love with my jailor.
Madly.
Deeply.
Irrevocably.
In love.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Andrei
I pressed my forehead against the cool tile and squeezed my eyes closed as the searing water pelted my back.
I heard him then.
My father.
“You will never be pure enough. Good enough. Never.”
I didn’t listen to him then.
But it had affected me — so deeply, so traumatically that I figured that’s how others saw me, that I was less than. That I wasn’t deserving of human touch, and then it turned into this desire not to touch people, because when I touched someone they were warm.
It was a reminder they were real.
And it was a reminder that I was a monster. A killer.
I pounded the side of the shower, I wanted to scream. I clenched my teeth to keep myself silent, posed, controlled.
I couldn’t lose control with her.
Not now.
Especially not now.
Because now I had no choice.
The Sinacores would kill her if they knew, just like Chase would.
My choices were limited.
And I was selfish enough to want her and damn the consequences.
I wanted her.
I didn’t deserve her.
But I couldn’t stop wanting her no matter how hard I tried.
With a curse, I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around my body as I quickly dried off in the bathroom and walked naked into my bedroom to grab a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
She was waiting for me.
She was starving.
So was I. Not for food; food wouldn’t sate this feeling I had in my soul, this feeling I had every time my heart beat and reminded me I was alive.
I threw on a vintage Henley and a pair of ripped jeans and ran my hands through my wet hair.
I was in too much of a hurry to care about anything else. I stopped when my hand touched the bedroom door.
My gloves.
My black gloves were on the dresser.
I hung my head in shame as his words washed over me again.
“You will never be good enough. Never.”
I swallowed the annoying feeling in my throat, the one that told me I was choosing emotion over logic, and grabbed the gloves, shoving my hands into them.
I would need them tonight.
Sadly, I would need them for the rest of my life, especially if I was doing this…with her.
Nobody else.
The Sinacores could go to hell.
Because tonight, she was going to be my heaven.
I rounded the corner to the kitchen, not finding her right away. I wrongly assumed she’d already be snacking on something. I loved that she actually ate.
Instead, the light strains of Tchaikovsky filled the air, quietly, in the background.
A smile played at my lips as I walked farther into the living room.
And then the smile died a quick death as I gripped the nearest counter space and swallowed.
She’d been sitting on the couch.
I wasn’t the only one who’d changed.
She didn’t make a big show of standing or even turning around like she needed attention or wanted me to say anything.
Sometimes the best compliments are the ones made in complete and utter silence.
If I spoke, it would ruin the moment.
And the moment was perfect.
Because she was being vulnerable. And I knew that she might as well be standing there naked, asking me to love her, take her, pleasure her.
I sucked in a shaky breath and almost laughed. So, this is what fear feels like?
I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like the temptation I had to shake, or to kill the moment with my own insignificant speech.
Fucking hell, she was gorgeous.
Her hair hung past her shoulders, dancing with each step she took. A piece had fallen between her cleavage, trapped exactly where I wanted to be.
I clenched my hands, the leather suddenly too binding, too constricting for what I had in mind.
But I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t be inside her and touching her all at once with everything I’d seen. It wasn’t fair to expose her to my demons when all I wanted was to give her heaven.
Hell wasn’t part of the bargain.
My eyes roamed lazily over her body as she took another step, her thigh causing the flimsy material to billow up as she moved.
It was pure torture as my body pulsed with temptation and need. It erupted from my fingertips as I gripped the countertop harder. Imagined myself breaking it in a million pieces as she finally stopped in front of me, not close enough, not by half.