Page 55 of Delivered to the Devil

“Does Gabor have other... girls?” I ask.

He simply shakes his head.

“But there have been many others like me, right?”

“Yes.” Janos reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear, trailing his fingertips across my skin as he goes. “He sticks to one at a time.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “That’s how obsession works.”

“Are you always the one in charge of his girls?”

“Yes.”

I want to ask if he lets the others sleep in his lap, if he hand-feeds them, and if he stays with them when they’re broken and scared. But I’m afraid to hear the answer, so I ask something else. “Why do you always bring that scrawny guy?”

Janos’s nose twitches as a trace of disgust passes over his features. When he remains silent, I think I chose the wrong question and ruined my chance of getting more information. But then he answers. “Gabor wants two men—to make sure everything runs smoothly. Two men can subdue a defiant girl quicker than one.”

I hate how he uses the wordgirl.Like I’m just another victim he has to deliver to his boss. But I know I’m more to him. I’m not just a job. At least not anymore. I have more than plenty of proof by now, yet it takes everything I have to convince myself that I’m not just another girl. That’s how broken my mind is. The evidence might be right in front of me, clear as day, yet it’s hard to see.

We are both quiet for a while before I move on to a new question. “Why don’t you like him?”

“Who?”

“The scrawny man.”

Again, there’s that twitch of his nose, like we’re talking about a rat that should be exterminated. “I don’t like the way he handles you.”

“Then why did you let him…” My voice trembles as I recall the harrowing month when I only felt cold, mechanical hands on my body. “For a whole month.”

His eyes darken with anger unlike any I’ve seen in him before. Grabbing my hip, he yanks me to him, knocking the air from my lungs as I collide with his chest. “Because you’re fucking with my mind.”

He bites down on my shoulder with a force that draws a yelp from me and shoves everything out of my mind before I can process his words. I whimper as his teeth dig into my muscles, yet I can’t help arching into him. He meets me with his hips, pressing his erection against my pussy, and my whimpers turn to moans.

God, I want you.The words hover on my lips, but before I can voice them, he pulls away.

Coldness crackles along my heated skin and intensifies the throbbing pain in my shoulder. I press my hand to the aching spot as I watch him disappear into the hallway, toward the living room.

Confusion creeps into my muddled mind, and loneliness clashes with the urge for more—his touch, any touch to relieve the pulsing need between my legs.

I clench my thighs, fighting off the urge to slip my fingers through the moisture down there. Humiliation would only worsen the loneliness if Janos were to come find me masturbating.

To distract myself, I go take a shower and use the time under the hot spray to try to make sense of what just happened. What he said. His apparent hatred for the scrawny man.

I rack my brain to remember the words he said just before he dug his teeth into my neck. Why would he keep bringing the other man if he doesn’t like him? He could surely find someone else, and I’m sure Gabor wouldn’t mind getting someone more competent to “subdue the girl.”

Then I remember his words.You’re fucking with my mind.I pause and stare at the white tile, my hands deep in my hair full of shampoo. The constant blur of my self-deprecating thoughts draws back to allow me a moment of clarity.

Janos isn’t mad at the scrawny man. He’s mad at himself for staying away.

It makes perfect sense. He cares about me even though he shouldn’t. And this attraction is dangerous. So he tried to distance himself—make me into just another girl to protect himself. But then Gabor offered me up to him, and his resolve broke. So now he’s here all the time, taking care of me in his own fucked up way because he cares.

CHAPTER 26

“Had it All”

by Mastodon

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