Page 84 of Seduced

‘I don’t scream,’he had said once.

To hell with that. He would neverstopscreaming if she didn’t reply to him this instant.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he screamed. “What if you—? What on earth possessed you to run in here, in the middle of hell itself…?”

“There is no hell here,” Poppy interrupted him, fury in her eyes. She was screaming almost as loudly as he. “I see no hell except that of your own making. It’s right here.”

She brought up her hand to his chest, and placed it on his bare skin, where his heart beat.

Immediately as soon as he felt her touch, he bent over, almost throwing up. She snatched back her hand, as if his skin had burned her.Dammit, dammit, dammit, he thought over and over and struggled not to be sick, fighting through the saliva gathering in his mouth and the nausea twisting in his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Poppy was saying. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you without warning you first. But I couldn’t stand to see you suffer like that. I didn’t want you to keep hurting without knowing that I…that you…I wanted to make sure you knew that you have so many friends who care about you.” He stopped heaving and stood absolutely still. Listening. “You have me.”

He turned around, still out of breath, and, still kneeling on the floor, he grabbed both her hands, brought them behind her back and kissed her once, roughly, on the mouth.

She began to respond at once, her body arching beneath his, her lips warm, inviting. It took all his strength and then some to pull his lips from hers, but this was not the time or the place for a kiss. His heart was still stuttering in fear, and she was still hurt, possibly seriously.

He opened his mouth to ask her once again, but she spoke before him.

“What the hell didyouthink you were doing?” she said, not too calmly.

He fell back on his haunches, hands dropping to his sides. That was not the response he had expected. She sounded positively incensed.

“Don’t swear,” he murmured.

“I shall swear as much as I like.”

“All right.”

Poppy tried to sit up and winced in pain. Immediately his hands were on her, cupping her neck.

“Hey, don’t move,” he said. “Where are you hurt?”

“I got hit on the back slightly,” Poppy replied, wincing again as she sat up. She looked furious, her green eyes flashing, her mouth pink and trembling. “But that is the least of the pain I suffered here today. What the hell are you doing to yourself? Why would—what was happening here?”

Alexei stood up, reaching a hand to pull her to her feet.

“It’s none of your business,” he said sullenly. The blood was drying on his chin and he felt as if his lip had swollen to ten times its size. “Poppy? I need to see where you’re hurt, sweetheart.” He peered at her face.

She looked genuinely afraid. His heart stuttered.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t…I didn’t think you would see me like this.”

“Like what? Being beaten to a pulp?”

He hung his head. Wet locks swung down to his chest.

“Did you ask these men to beat you up, Hades?” Poppy asked. He didn’t speak. “Answer me! Did they have your permission to hit you?”

He did not say a word. What could he say?

“Answer me, Alexei!”

My name. She said my name.

Don’t you say my name for something like this. Don’t you—

“Yes.”

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