Page 51 of Brutal Husband

“So fucking convenient.”

“I would think so too, if I were you.”

Rage expands his pupils. He seizes me by the throat with both hands, and I topple back onto the floor with him on top of me. I don’t fight him. I would want blood if it were my sister out there in a shallow grave.

I feel my windpipe close, and I start to choke. The stranger’s eyes blaze into mine. It hurts so much to be strangled, but I still don’t fight him or try to push him off. My hands clench the blanket as I wait for darkness to take me.

The stranger releases me with an exclamation of disgust and throws himself away from me. I drag breath into my burning lungs and slowly sit up.

“You’re not getting away with this so easily,” he says bitterly. “I’m getting answers before I kill you.”

Getting to his feet, he pulls me up with him, his fingers digging into my arms, and takes me upstairs into the en suite bathroom.

“I’m washing off this mud and the stench of my dead brother, which means so are you. I don’t want you out of my sight. Get in there.” He shoves me into the shower.

Nero pulls off his clothes and turns on the water. I’m deluged by the hot spray, and my clothes stick to my body. The stranger, however, is very naked. I didn’t lie around naked with my husband, as I expected to do as a married woman, but I wasn’t wholly unfamiliar with his body either. The tattoos decorating this man’s flesh are my husband’s tattoos. My fiancé’s tattoos. All exactly the same, except for the addition of the daisy.

The stranger’s angry gaze keeps drifting to me as he soaps his body, water and suds streaming down his muscular chest. I don’t want to stare at him, and I don’t mean to look, but suddenly, a certain part of his anatomy is pushing its way into my field of vision. I feel my face grow red and water droplets bead on my lashes. My husband never looked likethisaround me. Not unless he’d taken Viagra.

Instead of being embarrassed, the stranger goes on soaping himself and staring at me, seeming to enjoy my embarrassment.

Eventually, he turns the water off and reaches for a towel. I get a glimpse of his naked back, and dozens of scars crisscross his flesh. Not old, white, shiny scars. They’re raised, and many of them are red. I wonder if that means they’re relatively recent.

“How did…”

The stranger faces me and narrows his eyes, and I recall what he snarled in my face earlier.I’m asking the questions.

I can feel the ache of bruises forming on my throat. I swallow the words and stand dripping on the tiles in silence.

The stranger dabs his face with a towel and then wraps it around his hips. Strolling through to the bedroom, he orders, “Get out of those wet clothes and go to bed.”

Go to bed? I thought he was going to kill me. Maybe he’s tired and decided that killing me in the morning will do. Fumblingfor a towel and wrapping it around me to cover myself, I strip down to my underwear, and then I take those off as well. In the bedroom, I awkwardly pull on an oversized T-shirt and leggings while keeping myself covered with the towel.

Nero watches me. “Why are you getting dressed like that?”

He saw me naked the times he forced me to have sex with him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to parade around naked in front of him by choice. Ignoring him, I move to my side of the bed and pull the bedclothes back. Nero does the same on the other side.

I pull back in surprise. “You’re not going to sleep down the hall?”

“Why would I sleep down the hall?”

“Because you always…” Right. This man isn’t Nero, who seemed as though he’d rather die than share a bed with me.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight until I get answers. Speaking of which…” Nero goes over to the closet and takes out a necktie. Turning to me, he draws the silk through his fingers with a smile on his lips.

I back away from him in horror. “You’re going to tie me up and screw me after finding your dead brother in the back garden? You’re sick.”

He comes around the bed toward me, and just as I’m about to run for the door, he grabs me and lashes my wrists together. Then he ties the other end of the necktie around his own wrist.

“Who said anything about screwing you? I can’t have you fleeing in the night. Get into bed.”

He pulls me unwillingly into bed, discarding his towel just before he gets beneath the covers. He could at least put some clothes on. With a snap, he turns out the lights, and I lay there frozen in the dark, anticipating his hungry hands and devouring mouth. Nero’s thigh is touching my hip, but he doesn’t move.When I take a peep at him through my lashes, his eyes are closed.

The necktie is tight around my wrists, but not so tight that it’s uncomfortable. The bed is warm and cozy, and I slowly start to relax. It’s been an exhausting day. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and strangely, I feel no desire to get away from this man, and I don’t have any fear of dying. His presence beside me is oddly…comforting. The necktie around my wrists makes me feel safe.

Which is complete madness when I think about it.

I’m drifting toward sleep when my husband’s dead, decomposing face bursts into view in my mind. I open my eyes with a gasp.

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