Page 132 of Dance of Deception

I almost don’t want to even say it. But I do.

"It’s not the first time he’s come and found me like that," I whisper.

Carmine freezes.

"When?" His voice is sharp, with something else in it now that I can’t place.

I force myself to keep breathing. "A couple times. Sometimes it was just him, trying to get ‘the story’ from me. Sometimes it was his lunatic followers.” I swallow thickly. “I…I have—had?—."

It’shad, now. Past tense, since I can still see Marcus’ head evaporating in that dive bar.

“I had a restraining order against him. Which…clearly didn’t mean a thing,” I mumble bitterly.

The air between us darkens.

"Why didn’t you tell me?" His voice is quiet, but somehow it feels louder than a shout.

I let out a bitter laugh. "Would it have changed anything?"

Carmine’s grip tightens, his jaw flexing, his eyes dark and unrelenting.

"You’re my wife.Everythingabout you fucking matters to me."

The words knock the air from my lungs. The silence that follows is thick, suffocating, stretching between us until I can’t take it anymore.

…And then, the words spill out of me.Yearsof them.

I tell him about the constant harassment. The insane conspiracy theorists who call me an accomplice, saying I must have known what my father was doing.

The families of the victims who blame me, who look at me and see a monster who stole their daughters.

The “special news presentations” discussing whether or not Sophia Ferguson, my father’s final victim—the girl I saw that day the door was left ajar—was killedbecauseI’d run screaming from the house.

I tell him how I threw myself into dancing to escape the whispers. The eyes. The weight of it all.

Then, I tell him about the doubt that festers inside me.

“What if they’re right?” My voice shakes. “What if Ishouldhave known? What if?—”

Carmine grabs me.

Not gently. Not carefully. Fiercely.

"You’re fucking perfect," he growls.

And then his lips crash to mine, all possessive heat, like he’s trying to brand himself onto my skin, pour himself into my blood.

I don’t fight him. I don’t want to.

Because this isn’t a battle anymore, nor a war, nor a struggle for dominance. It's surrender.

Not the kind that makes me weak or breaks me. The kind that binds.

His hands grip my face, his thumbs pressing into my jaw as he tips my head back, dragging his teeth over my lower lip.

“Every inch of you belongs to me,” he rasps raggedly. “No one else will ever touch you, or have you.”

A shiver rolls through me. It’s not fear. It’s want. A hunger that’s been building for days…weeks…maybe since the moment I first met him.

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