Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 78142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
He doesn’t respond, not that I expected him to.
I stand up. “I want to understand, Dragon. I want to understand you.”
Dragon casts his gaze to the floor. “No, you don’t.”
“Who are you to tell me what I want and don’t want?” I place my hand over my heart. “If I say I want to understand, then I want to understand. Not everyone lies.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not saying you’re lying, Diana. I think you think you want to understand. But if you could see inside my head—if you could see the darkness that’s inside me—you wouldn’t say that.”
Christ, are we on this hobby horse again?
“Tell me one thing. That’s all I ask. Why did you give her money?”
He draws in a breath, stares at me a moment, and then— “She reminded me of someone, okay? Satisfied?”
“Who did she remind you of?”
“Sorry. You told me to tell you one thing. I told you.”
I can’t argue with his logic. I just didn’t expect his answer to lead to more questions.
What is his story? Why is he the way he is?
How does one become an addict?
There are about a zillion answers to that question. Not that I would know any. Dragon is the first addict I’ve known. I knew people in college who overindulged, but none of them were addicts. They’d go back to class on Monday and continue getting straight As, only to party hard again the following weekend.
That’s not addiction. That’s letting loose.
Addiction is another thing altogether. Since I hardly drink and I never took drugs—at least not knowingly—it’s not something I understand. But I want to understand. Because I want to understand Dragon.
But if he won’t tell me who the hooker reminded him of, he’s certainly not going to indulge me if I pepper him with questions about addiction.
Dragon is a very private person, and it probably irks him that I even know he’s an addict.
“Fine,” I say. “I won’t ask any more questions. At least not tonight. But as I said, I’m not kicking you out of here. If you want to leave, leave on your own.”
“I don’t want to leave,” he says. His voice is low, almost menacing.
I can’t help a slight smile. That’s the first time he’s said anything like that. That he actually wants to be with me.
“Then don’t.”
“Show me your silk scarves,” he says darkly.
The two halves of my tank top are still hanging around my arms, my breasts totally exposed. I walk to my dresser, open the top drawer where I keep my scarves and other accessories. I choose a dark-blue one. Not because of the darkness in Dragon, but because it’s on top.
I hand it to him.
He gazes at it, moves it in his hands, fingering the fabric. “You have another?”
“I do.” I grab the next scarf, which is light pink.
Darkness and light.
Dusk and dawn.
I hand it to him.
He takes it, gazes at it for another minute, fingering the fabric once more.
“Lie down on the bed, Diana. Lie down and grab two rungs on your headboard.”
His voice is low and dark, and for a moment, I feel like it’s the dragon on his chest talking to me. As if that’s the true person he is on the inside. A fire-breathing dragon.
But he’s not.
He’s simply a man. A troubled man. A man for whom I’m rapidly developing feelings I shouldn’t have.
It’s more than just his dark good looks. Hell, I come from a family of men with dark good looks. It’s more than just his gorgeous hazel eyes. Even though they’re so unique, like a cascade of water falling over soft moss.
It’s the beast within him. The storm-tossed animal trying to get out.
And it’s focused solely on me.
It tells me to obey him. To obey him without further questions.
So I do exactly that.
I lie down on my bed, and I grab two of the oak rungs.
He ties my wrists to the rungs tightly. He doesn’t ask if it’s too tight. He simply does it.
I don’t complain.
He’ll untie me if I ask him to. He hasn’t said this, but I already know he will. Because despite what he thinks of himself, he’s not evil. Evil men don’t give prostitutes money to keep them out of trouble with their pimps.
Evil men don’t worry so much about relapsing into the darkness of addiction.
He may not be a nice man, but he’s far from evil.
I can tell he’s done this before, because the knots he ties show skill. I’m not actually attached to the headboard. He tied the scarf around my wrist, securing it, and then secured the rest of the scarf to the rung.
I wasn’t expecting that. I figured he’d simply tie my wrists straight to the rung.
“Grasp the silk,” he says.
With my fists, I’m able to grasp the length of silk between my wrists and what’s tied to the headboard.