Page 105 of Chain Me
“No,” he admitted. “But if there were, I would have burned them.”
A scream of frustration left me hollow. When that wasn’t enough, I found myself pacing in a circle, tearing my hands through my hair. It still wasn’t enough. I had to hit him, swiping my nails at his flawless features. “I hate you!”
“You should,” he agreed, not flinching so much as an eyebrow in the face of my assault. Without even leaving a mark, my fingers glanced harmlessly off his flesh. “Because if she proves to be a threat to you, I’ll do far worse than that.”
The veracity of the promise drained me of rage entirely. I just felt numb, watching the hint of a monster lurk beneath his callous façade. “You had no right—”
“I don’t?” In a motion so effortless that I felt it rather than saw it, he snatched up my wrist, yanking me so close that my lips met the skin of his throat. Against my scalp, he murmured, “I don’t have a right to be concerned when your sister consorts with a band of cultists who want you dead? I don’t have a right?”
My skin stung beneath the venom in his tone. I’d never heard him quite this cold—passionless and passionate at the same time.
“Do you have any idea—” Within seconds, he had me backed against the stone wall enclosing the garden. When I dared to meet them, his eyes were midnight, flashing with rage. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done—what I had to bargain—to even bring you here?Time!More than you can ever imagine!”
He was shouting. Smoldering with rage, he alone made the sun seem powerless, and the world became gray with shadow.
“Do you have any idea what I’d do to anyone who threatened you? I won’t apologize for any of it. So do not expect me to. And do you want to know why?” His mouth was against my hair, his words a low, mocking hum.
“I should never forgive you for this.” I’d felt compelled to say it. To mean it, even as the words broke off in a gasp when his lips met the side of my throat. “Never… Not even if you beg.”
“I never beg.” The promise taunted me as he sank to his knees. In front of me. Right there in broad daylight. Swift fingers wrenched up the hem of my dress. His head darted beneath it, and then…
Slow, deliberate pulses of his thumb nudged my legs apart and a moan ripped from my throat, echoing on the secluded silence. I squeezed my eyes shut, throwing my head back against the stone. Neither action helped reduce the insanity of what was happening.
“Stop!” I wanted to cling to my anger. I tried to.
But a brush of his touch against my skin disrupted my senses. Perhaps he had been right all along? I was delirious.
“I believe we have concluded this discussion,” he murmured against my inner thigh. “I promise to avail myself to your rage at a later time. But now… You were beyond me for days. I believe I am due some kind of recompense.”
Recompense?
“But Georgie is your ideal,” I hissed even as my body remained rigid, at his mercy. “And it’s not like you’re my type, either.”
As my thoughts scattered, they turned to what my pride considered his worst offense, in addition to lying and scheming. Insulting my apparent appeal.
“You’retoo bold.” As if to prove it, what felt like his lips grazed the side of my hip, making my train of thought sputter and nearly derail. “Too cold. Mean. C-Cocky—”
“Those sound like defining attributes to me.” As he spoke, he did something with his hands that stole my breath. Soft, dangerous fingertips. Rough, sinful heat.
I found myself gasping for air. “You’re too blond,” I breathed. “I prefer brunettes—”
“Like that man you dined with?”
I heard the question as if he’d spoken to me through a tube.
“What was his name again?”
“Hmph?” My brain was too busy detaching from my skull to keep up, floating.
“Gabriel something,” he recalled. Muscle and nerves melted. The vibrations of his voice dangerously enhanced the slow, steady pressure building between my legs.
I wanted to correct him. But then his lips slid lower, too low, and I panicked, desperate for ammunition.
“Oh, him… He was charming. A gentleman. The usual list of everything you aren’t—”
He went too low. My back bowed, nails scraping against the stone on either side of me for any hint of stability. In response, he laughed, really laughed, and it was sin. Evil. Devastating. My spine turned to putty. Rudderless, I had to brace one hand against his skull, fisting my fingers through his hair.
“The man shrouds himself in an unusual amount of mystic,” he admitted. “I do suspect he has ties to the mob. Or that he’s secretly a crossdresser given his rather feminine aesthetic. I daresay you dodged a bullet.”
