Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Maybe one day, I’ll grow a brain and hate him like I should.
I looked at some of the birth control pills and compared them to my original pills. Although I couldn’t see any difference, I’m not sure what Lucas said isn’t true. It makes sense.
My arm throbs at the injection site. I look at it. The skin is an angry, swollen, red, and the bruise has darkened. I touch it lightly, but it’s so tender I pull my hand away.
I’m just picking up the key I’d put into the nightstand drawer to lock the door when it opens. Before turning around, I wrap my hand around the hilt of the blade instead.
I’m not surprised but my breath still hitches when I turn around to face a very angry Damian.
“What the fuck was that?” he asks, eyes falling to the switchblade I haven’t opened.
Keeping it in my hand, I pick up my robe to slip it on. I don’t bother to tie it closed. All the while, I’m very aware of the cum growing sticky on my thighs.
He’s put on a pair of jeans but is naked otherwise. When I see him like this, I can see him working in that shed. See his body slick with sweat as he painstakingly carves the intricate details on the Gates of Hell doors.
“If you open that, we have a problem. A bigger one than you made inside.”
I meet his eyes, stormy, a tumultuous gray. When he approaches me, I don’t have any room to back up.
He takes my wrist lightly. “Are we going to have a problem?” He squeezes just a little, showing me that if I fight him, I’ll lose.
“No,” I say, turning my hand over for him to take the switchblade from me.
“Good.” He pockets it. I guess he’s not risking it. “What the fuck was that, Cristina?”
“Which part?” I ask, sounding strangely calm even though my heart is racing.
“The part where you ask me to fuck you hard, come, then call me a monster and walk out.”
“Aren’t you a monster? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to tell me? Isn’t that what you warned me about when I was just ten years old?” I feel my eyes warm with tears, and I know he sees them, too. I wish I was harder, more resilient.
I wish I were a monster too.
“Don’t you see anything I do? Hear anything I say?” he asks.
He told me he loved me. I heard that. But it was in the throes of fucking, so I call that the unreliable ramblings of a man thinking with his dick.
Yet something inside me twists because I am just stupid enough to want it to be real. I am just pathetic enough.
“I think that apart from Scott and Liam, every single man I have ever known wants something from me.” I walk away, needing space. When my back is turned, I wipe my face.
He doesn’t let me get far though. He’s standing in front of me again in the next second.
“Does this have to do with your impromptu meeting with my brother today?”
He must see the shock on my face.
“You didn’t think Cash was the only soldier I sent with you, did you?”
“You said—”
“I told you I’m not going to let anything happen to you. That means anyone who’d hurt you. Even my own blood.”
“You were having me followed even though you sent me with a soldier?” I ask, remembering Liam’s comment about the goons out on the street, and how I’d dismissed it when he’d suggested they were Damian’s men.
“Four additional soldiers were tailing you. That’s how I knew about Liam yesterday.”
“Did you do this for my own good, like everything else you apparently do?”
“One man—and a disloyal one at that—wouldn’t be able to stand against an attack. I wasn’t going to take any chances with you. They’ll hurt you to get to me. Don’t think they won’t try.”
It takes me a minute to digest those last words.
“And if you’re wondering, Cash has been dealt with,” he says.
“What do you mean ‘dealt with’?”
“I don’t tolerate traitors, Cristina. I hope you won’t become one.”
The way he says the word traitors and the way he’s looking at me make me shiver.
“If you think me a traitor, will you deal with me like you do your men?” My belly quivers, my courage fading.
He narrows his eyes to search my face. He’s not angry, though. He’s curious. And something else. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. Hurt, maybe?
Don’t be stupid.
“You’re my wife. I’ll deal with you differently if I have to. But I hope I won’t have to.”
It’s strange when he talks about me being his wife. It doesn’t fit. I’m his wife because he needs me to be. Period. If Lucas is telling me the truth. If my uncle is. Even if Lucas would lie out of hatred for Damian, why would my uncle?