Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
He’d hold it as if he’d break it just by breathing.
He’d cradle it as if it were the most precious, wonderous thing. Nothing else existed for him. Just him and that cup—half terrified of breaking it, half mystified by its fragility.
That’s how Henri’s touching me.
Like I’m a cup.
I giggled for no apparent reason.
“Jesus, that stuff is strong,” he muttered under his breath. His fingers traced over my ribs, adding a thick layer of cream.
My entire body turned ticklish.
My giggle became a laugh. “Stop. God, stop!”
“Fuck.” Ripping his hands off me, he shook the bed with his horror. “I didn’t mean…” He sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. God, I’m—”
“For what?” I frowned.
“For hurting you.”
“Hurting me?” I shrugged. “No, you tickled me.”
That seemed to make him worse.
His face flushed.
His pulse pounded in his neck.
He spiralled; I reached for him. “Hey…it’s okay. Talk to me…”
Swallowing a groan, he leapt to his bare feet.
He paced and refused to look at me.
I’d felt many things for this man. Most of them were not very nice, and some far, far too intense, but in that moment, all I felt was panic.
The stranger from the cave kept smothering the man who’d asked me to play along with him. The man from the bar who’d made my very soul shiver drowned beneath a blackened murderer. “Henri…”
“Don’t,” he hissed.
“What’s happened—?”
“Be quiet.” He raked a hand through his hair, unable to hide his shaking. With effort that etched his eyes with stress lines, he sat back down and painted another bruise on my hip.
He kept his eyes trained on my injuries. Lips pursed. Chest heaving. His insides screaming so loudly he deafened me.
You need to get him to talk…
Doing my best to ignore the creeping fear that he was slipping away, I scrambled for something to say. Something he’d find interest in. Something that would cease his descent into whatever nightmares he fought.
I came up blank.
My mind danced with sparks.
Yes, sparks!
Blurting, I said, “My wand.”
His forehead furrowed. His grey eyes flickered to mine. But he didn’t speak.
My mind filled with memories of that day. A happier time. A safer time. Those happy feelings bubbled over, and I found myself doing exactly what he’d said I would: I willingly shared a piece of who I was in order to bring him back to me. “I was nineteen when I got my tattoo. I got it the week after I passed my gemmology degree.”
I waited for him to ask for more details.
He didn’t.
Instead, he hyper-focused on another bruise, and another, and another. Making a personal vendetta against them as if by removing them he could erase everything that’d happened.
“I got a wand because Krish drew me a picture when I went to sit my exams. He said to imagine my pen was a wand, and it would write all the correct answers.” I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. “It worked. It brought me luck. And I decided I wanted to keep that luck with me forever.”
No response.
Yet I had the sense he was listening…clinging to every morsel I gave him.
“You might say that my luck didn’t work. That it ran out, and that’s how I ended up here.”
Nothing.
His lack of conversation and the wrongness of his silence forced me to continue filling it.
“But luck works in mysterious ways…” I closed my eyes for a moment, tapping into that endless knowing within me, letting it guide what I said. “I think…I think my luck drew me here. Drew me to you. To the jewels. I think—”
“Enough,” he snarled. “Stop it.”
I didn’t flinch this time at his scolding.
I saw it for what it was.
Agony.
I overflowed with druggy forgiveness.
He’d killed for me. Twice.
Because of him, I hadn’t been raped or mutilated.
He’s good.
Peter was right.
He saw that light.
It’s still there.
I pointed at the dinged-up watch on his wrist, needing to make him snap.
His eyes followed my finger, his shoulders stiffening.
“Why do you get all sad when you look at your watch?”
He gritted his teeth and moved farther down the bed, smearing cream on my thighs.
No reply.
I longed for his secretive whispers.
I craved for him to speak.
“Tell me,” I urged.
Nothing.
“I gave you a piece of my past—”
Still nothing.
“Do you miss her?”
His eyebrows flew into his hair. “What?”
Finally.
I kept digging, deliberately stabbing him with memories.
“Your mother. Do you miss her?”
He choked and shook his head. “How…how could you possibly know she gave this to me?”
The drugs in my system made me float. “My magical powers of deduction?” I winked. The room spun. My heart thudded sleepily, making my tongue far too loose. “Someone you loved gave you that watch. I can tell because that love lives in your eyes when you look at it. It can’t be your dad, and you said you haven’t had much success in relationships, so…it must’ve been your mum.”
He bared his teeth. “Shut up, Ilyana, before I lose my temper.”