Page 61 of Onyx Realm

It must be bad. The flickers of light against the dark made the puckered scars on his face more pronounced. I hadn’t asked Evangelia what happened to him, because it felt too personal, too much like gossip.

Someone hurt him.Badly.

That thought made a small knot of sadness ache in my chest.

But I couldn’t feel completely bad for him. This was the man who’d kept me prisoner. Who’d kissed me when he planned to take another. That was going to change. If I stayed here, if I didn’t attempt another escape, he would need to be open to some basic freedoms—and some healthy distance.

No more kissing.

Instead of going into the building, Markos took me to his jeep. He set me down on the back and reached for a metal closed box near the raised wheel well.

“You came back,” he stated.

Warmth flooding my cheeks, I shifted about. “I did.”

“Why?”

“Unfinished business.”

His dark gaze flicked to mine. I could feel it grazing against my skin. “And what would that be, prinkípissa?”

As he spoke, Markos took a first aid kit from the storage box and began to dab at my skinned knees.

I bit back a hiss as the gauze made contact. “I wanted to know what you were going to do with the woman you were supposed to kidnap?”

His fingers stilled, but only for an instant. “Marry her.”

Butterflies roused in my stomach. “Why haven’t you?”

Markos placed a bandage over the first knee. “Fate had other plans.”

The colorful bugs began to race about inside me. “And those other plans...what do they consist of?”

Instead of cleaning the second knee, his fingers ran up the length of one thigh, stopping at the hem of the dress, only to trail back down the inside of the second.

“The winds sent me you,” he murmured.

The butterflies exploded in a frenzy. Good lord, something was very wrong with me indeed.

“Oh, and what are you going to do with me?” I smiled coyly. I was going to cross some forbidden line with my captor. The consequences be damned, I wanted him, and he wanted me enough to keep kissing his prisoner.

It was time I started enjoying the perks of captivity.

But just as I leaned forward, ready to close the distance, Markos pulled back.

“Here’s my dilemma,” he said gruffly. “You know too much.”

I didn’t like where this was going. There was no way in hell I was going to marry someone from his village. I thought we’d already covered that.

“I won’t tell,” I murmured, hoping my voice sounded as sultry out loud as I meant in my head. “I give you my word of honor, Mr. Pirate.”

He stilled at that. “Not good enough.”

I blinked in confusion. What just happened? We were flirting, or at least what I thought was that, and we were giving in to the temptation swirling around. It was at the heart of why I came back. I wanted to explore this thing between us! Push him until he gave into the pull. Take things further than a kiss!

“You’re going to marry me, or I’m going to kill the owner of the yacht christenedFortune’s Favorite.”

Who the hell do I know that owns a—

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