Page 65 of Broken

I don’t blame him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I can’t help it,” I whisper, and I know my eyes are big as I stare at him in the low light. The streetlights that revealed the blood on his chest pour an orange glow through the windows, illuminating us both in their golden hue. “You’re so beautiful, Savio. How could I not?”

His mouth works for a second. Though he’s furious and his anger has his arms all bunched up, his stomach muscles tensing as if he’s ready to throw me off the bed, my statement has him flopping back against the mattress.

“What am I going to do with you?” he rasps, shaking his head, rocking it so his hair tangles on the cotton pillow beneath him.

“You don’t have to do anything,” I tell him softly. “Just let me be here.”

“This is wrong,” he counters, and his hand tightens about my wrist before he starts to let go.

This time it’s me who moves.

My free hand darts out and I grasp his wrist just as he clutches mine, holding him there, not wanting the connection to drop.

“I need you, Savio, and I think you need me.”

He doesn’t seem to be listening to me, though, because he grumbles, “You have blood on you.”

“You’re bleeding all over the place.” I shrug. “What’s a bit of blood between soul mates?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”

“Good.”

Maybe he hears my jealousy because he snorts. “I didn’t mean that as a compliment, Andrea.”

Immediately, tension seeps out of me.

That tone… He’s not going to force me to leave.

Not yet, anyway.

And as relief fills me, it’s nothing to the delight that blossoms deep inside my being at hearing him say my name for the first time.

“I’m taking it as a compliment,” I rasp before forcing myself to say lightly, “There’s only one of me. God created perfection and he didn’t want to make everyone else envious.”

“Bigheaded as well as crazy.”

“I don’t think it’s too big to get through the front door.”

“Praise be to God for that.” Neither of us move our hands. At least, that’s until his thumb shifts—flattening out against my pulse point. “What are you doing in here?”

“I heard you call out in your sleep.” Any amusement in me fades at the memory of his pain. “Y-You calmed down when I came in and I didn’t want to leave you.”

His scowl returns before he hisses out a breath. “Night terrors.”

“Do you get them often?”

He doesn’t answer, but he grows still. “Please, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

I can feel the tension in him as if it throbs through the blood-soaked mattress.

Maybe it does.

Maybe because his blood is touching me, it’s a conduit to him. To his soul.

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