Page 82 of Pride
Nope.Thatwas Mercy.
Alice giggled.
30
Something had shiftedin Parker overnight. His sweet assassin had taken everything he’d given and wanted more. They’d made love again, more quietly the second time, and only after he was certain every prying nearby Sinner was fast asleep. Then they’d laid in her tiny cot, him on the bottom and her sprawled over his sweaty body, staring into the shadows and murmuring secrets into the darkness.
“I like it when you hold me,” she whispered. “I like it even more when you tie me up. I want you to tie me without clothes next time. Like the woman in your pictures.”
He tightened his embrace, squeezing her to him. “I like tying you, too. It makes me…”
“What?” she patted his chest.
“It makes me feel like I can contain you. Like you’re mine and you won’t go anywhere.” His voice deepened. “Yes, I’d like to tie you naked. And we will make new pictures together. No one will see them but me.”
She propped herself and looked down at him, her lustrous hair flowing down to tickle him. Moonlight limned her head like a halo. How could she think she was evil when she was the very essence of virtue to him? He tucked hair behind her ear. If God existed, he gave her to him.
“I’m not leaving you, if that’s what you meant about containing me.” She smiled softly and trailed a finger idly over his chest. “When you tie me, I feel… safe. Secure. Like the world could be crumbling outside and it won’t touch me. Like when you look at me I’m the only person who exists. There is no Hell. No sin. No punishment. Just you wanting me. Youseeingme as something beautiful.”
She sighed and rested her head over his heart, listening to it beat. He stroked her hair, feeling the tug of uncertainty pull inside his gut. Her words echoed sharply in his head.Punishment.Sin.
That had been her life here at the abbey. It had been her life for two decades, if not more. Possibly in this tiny room with scratches on the walls and punishment etched into its soul. Shame. He never wanted her to feel it again, and to do that, she had to stop looking back.
“Alice. From now on, you won’t think about the things you’ve done in the past.” He felt her tense, so he gripped her hair in his fist. “No looking back. Just forward. Promise me.”
The air left her, and she sank into him before nodding quietly. But he wasn’t sure he believed her. For now, it was enough. He rested his head back on the hard pillow and curled his lip in disgust at the tiny room. She deserved so much more. He would cover her in gold and diamonds when they returned. He would spend his life showing her how much she was worth.
Her feminine sigh triggered every instinct deep inside. A low vibrating rumble started in the base of his throat. The first time he’d purred, she’d been thankfully asleep. This time, he didn’t try to hide it and was glad. She climbed up his body and kissed his throat, right where the sound was thickest, and then she dropped to press her ear against his chest.
The intimate moment was as binding as a rope coiled around them. She fell asleep to the purring lullaby of his contentment. He drifted off, stroking her hair, thinking about all the ways he could tighten that rope, knot it in a way it could never be undone.
* * *
Parker woke suddenlyto the feeling of feathers fluttering all over his face. For a moment he thought he was back on that rooftop with Daisy, staring up at wings against the blue sky. But then he opened his eyes to the sun streaming in and the soft sound of Alice’s even breaths, strands of her wayward hair tickling. She’d used him as a mattress. His legs didn’t fit on the one-person cot. As carefully as he could, he eased himself out from beneath her and dressed back into his pants and shirt.
At the window, down the four of five floors, the nuns were going about their morning work in the gardens. It couldn’t be more than a few minutes after dawn—the sky still had that otherworldly color. Pink, purple, orange and gold glowed around the nuns’ habits. He watched them for a long moment and knew he should simply appreciate the beauty, but all he could think was that the purity of it would haunt the Sinners, forever taunting them with a heavenly life they would never receive.
It disgusted him.
He searched the small room for any belongings of worth that Alice might want to bring to his place. He doubted she would see this cell again. Never if he had his way. There were no belongings except the record player. Nothing personal. No picture frames or special mementos. Nothing but instruments of torture.
A band constricted around his chest at the mortification of the flesh tools scattered on the ground. That ritual would need to stop. He would not allow his mate to punish herself. He picked up the discipline. This was her belief. Still… he ripped it to shreds and then tossed it into the trash. He crushed the barbed chain cilices in his metal palm. The rosary beads he pocketed.
He would burn this entire place down if she let him, but a part of him knew she would never forgive him. As twisted as he thought this place was, it meant something. He looked outside and saw the pristine gardens as a taunt. She probably saw them as a sanctuary. He had to respect that.
His cell phone buzzed with an incoming message. He checked it, saw it was the Lazarus Tech Board representative, and then put it back in his pocket, ignored.
“That’s been going off all morning,” Alice mumbled.
He whirled. She was still half asleep, hair adorably mussed, lips extra pouty from all the kissing. She’d managed to roll her naked form within a modest blanket. God, she had no idea how gorgeous she was. Already he needed to touch her, to set his soul at ease.
“You should still be sleeping,” he replied.
She raised a brow, clearly unconvinced that answer suited her question. “Like you, I don’t sleep so much.”
He grunted.
Alice patted the bed. “Sit with me.”
