Page 59 of The Butcher

“That this is more than casual.”

His blue eyes were locked on my face with a hint of viciousness. It was just a stare, but it was threatening, like he was sizing up an opponent rather than looking at the woman he was bedding.

My voice trembled from that ferocious stare. “Look…I’m not looking for anything serious right now. I moved out of my husband’s house two months ago. I’m not even divorced yet. I’m in no place to be anything more than…casual.”

He continued his ruthless stare, not blinking once since this topic had been broached. His arms remained crossed over hishard chest, the biceps of his arms enormous bulges under his dark ink. He didn’t say a word, but his silence was loud enough to be present in the conversation.

“I just…want to make that clear.” From the first time I’d seen Bastien, it’d been a whirlwind of passionate nights and heated kisses and ass-grabs. It was exactly what I needed right now, but I didn’t want anything more, not when my heart was still broken, not when I couldn’t imagine giving my heart to another man after what Adrien had done to me.

His head remained cocked and his eyes intense.

I waited for him to say something, and I swallowed the tension down my throat.

He continued to look at me, his thoughts a mystery, his reaction restrained. “Okay.”

“I can’t see myself in a relationship for a very long time.”

“Okay.”

Something about the way he spoke made it seem like his words were hollow, like they were meaningless. “What does that mean?”

“I said okay.”

“But the way you’re saying it… It’s like you’re dismissing me.”

He continued his hard stare.

“You mean a lot to me, and I don’t want to mislead you.”

“Okay.”

“You’re doing it again. It’s like you don’t believe me?—”

“He hurt you. I get it,” he said. “You need time.”

He seemed to accept what I said, said what I wanted to hear, but there was something to his tone, to his stare, that made me feel otherwise. Like my words made no difference whatsoever.

He pushed off the desk and walked around it to open one of the drawers. He grabbed a wad of cash rolled up in a rubber band and set it at the edge of the desk. “Buy whatever you need.”

The top denomination was a five-hundred-euro bill and there had to be at least twenty bills in the roll, so it must have been about ten thousand euros—just sitting in one of the drawers in his desk. Not even locked up in a safe. “I can’t take your money.”

He stared me down, a slight look of annoyance in his gaze. “You can take the money and save me a shopping trip—or you can be stubborn and waste my time.”

My eyes shifted away when I couldn’t handle that stare.

He took the wad of cash off the table and walked over to where my purse sat on the armchair. He dropped the money inside then headed back to the bedroom, a muscular behemoth who made the floorboards creak under his weight. “Let’s go to bed, sweetheart.”

When I woke up the next morning, he was already out of bed.

I checked the time on my phone and saw that it was noon.

I left the bed, used the restroom, and then found him in the sitting room, already dressed for the day like he’d completed his workout and showered while I slept like a baby. He was inan olive-green long-sleeved shirt and black jeans and boots—fucking delicious as usual.

“Morning, sweetheart.” He sat at the dining table, drinking a cup of coffee while reading the newspaper. He patted his thigh for me to take a seat.

I smiled then dropped onto his lap, circling my arm around his neck before I kissed him. My shirt rose up my thighs, and his fingers grazed over the bare skin that was exposed. “Morning.”

“Hungry?”

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