He rounds the bed, and I push off the wall, but he’s faster, catching me around the waist and hauling me back into his front. I fight in his hold, a breathless cry leaving my lips, but he’s too strong and has at least a foot or more of an advantage on me.
He tosses me on the bed and climbs over me, his body caging mine even as I fight him. He brings his hands up, and instinctively, I flinch, cowering from the blow I’ve subconsciously come to expect.
“Shhh . . .” he soothes gently, his hand instead brushing the hair back from my face. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Like a scared dog, shivers roll through me, and I bow my head to the side, shutting my eyes.
“I do-don’t believe you,” I manage to croak, fighting against the onslaught of voices battering at the inside of my head just from his body on mine, pinning me down.
Dirty little whore.
Look at all that blood.
Your tears are so beautiful, tinged in red.
I suck in a ragged breath, and his fingers slip over my face, down the scar on my jaw, then up to the one at my hairline.
“You left me on a rooftop to bleed out, Mila,” he whispers, his face so close to mine, I can smell the mint and tobacco on his breath. “I told you I’d always find you.”
“You don’t understand,” I whimper, but it’s useless.
“I understand perfectly, little devil,” he murmurs, dropping his lips to my ear. A shiver runs down my spine, and I’m more than a little embarrassed about the heat gathering in my stomach from the rough grain of his voice. “Now . . . you’re going to tell me why.”
“I can’t,” I breathe, shaking my head, but his fingers grip my chin, forcing my gaze to his. It’s like staring into the center of a black hole. Humming silence and the promise of death loom in the depths of those eyes.
The same eyes I’ve laid awake at night thinking about. The same ones that used to look at me with a kind of adoration you only read about in romance novels and books likePride and Prejudice.
Now, they hold nothing but bitter darkness.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I whisper.
“Oh, but you did, baby.” His voice has an edge to it I can’t understand. This Christian isn’t the one I fell in love with. This Christian is volatile. Deadly.
Not a care for anything in the world, let alone me. Probably not even himself.
“And now you’re going to fix it.”
“How?”
He cocks his head to the side, eyes glinting with dark amusement.
“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
I shake my head, tears slipping down my cheeks and onto the cotton sheets below, but he merely smirks.
“What do you want from me?”
“Hmm . . . WhatdoI want from you?” he muses, his fingers slipping lower over my sternum where I know he can feel myracing heartbeat. “Tell me who you were running from, and I’ll think about letting you go.”
I stare at him, my pulse racing in my throat with uncertainty.
“Just tell me what you want, you freaking psychopath,” I growl, fighting again against his hold, but it’s no use. He’s a foot taller than me and at least a hundred pounds of muscle heavier, especially after my lack of food in the last few months.
In a flash, his eyes darken to midnight, his gaze searing on my skin as he looms over me. His voice is low and soft, deadly calm, sending a shiver of fear through me.
Who is this man? This isn’t the Christian Cross I left on the hospital roof all those months ago.
“Revenge.”