Page 68 of Tortured Soul
“I’mnot—”
“If you’re opening that damned mouth of yours to tell me you won’t be sleeping here, I suggest you shut it.”
Which I did.
Because Iwasabout to say just that.
He threw the shirt toward me over his shoulder, not bothering to turn back and see it land right on top of my head.
“I’m going to shower. If you leave, I’ll hunt you down and bring you back here. We made abinding promise,” he said, turning just enough for me to see the side of his face. The side with the eye so dark it was nearly black. “If you break it, it won’t be hard to find you. I’ll just have to follow the noises of pain.”
I was starting to regret my actions.
Not thebrattyones, of course. That was something I could never stop and learned not to ponder. But the damned binding promise.
Although he made it seem like it was for my own good, he did manage to keep me monitored, like he promised he’d do when we were in Carrie’s office. And since evenDimitriof all people warned me about the pain breaking a binding promise would bring me, I didn’t feel like trying my luck.
I was well and truly stuck here.
WithArc.
Who was taking his sweet time in the shower.
My hands fumbled with the end of the large T-shirt he gave me.
It wasn’t good.
I was completely enveloped in a mix of his scents and it made me feel strangely sleepy and safe. I couldn’t let him bait me into feeling like this around him. Not when I was mad at him for hiding things from me. For not telling me I was his mate the second he felt it and choosing hostility instead.
And Kai? What was he playing at, asking me to get closer to Arc if he—and everyone—knew about our mate link? Why place me in an unbinded group’s house? Something was going on here, and I was clueless as to what.
But I justknewthere wassomething.
The door to the bathroom opened and my hands turned to fists on the hem of my shirt, trying to pull it down and hide more of my naked thighs.
When he stepped foot inside the room, closing the door behind him, I barely managed to keep my jaw from dropping.
This morning he had been shirtless, yes. But at least he wore jeans. Those boxer briefs left little to the imagination as it outlined every bulge and ridge.
Damn, the man looked fine.
I wasn’t sure if he felt my gaze on him or, like me, the atmosphere in the room changing, but he stopped at the other end of the room, turning around to face me, leaning his biteable ass against the edge of his desk. When I thought he would cross his arms over his chest to somewhat hide himself a little, he didn’t, choosing instead to place them on the surface next to his hips.
Putting on a show of himself, well aware that my gaze was stuck on his form.
“I’ve been a patient man with you, Lola,” he said, eyes studying me like mine were studying him. “I’ve waited for you to figure it out on your own, but it seems you’re hellbent on ignoring it.”
That body was a work of art. Was it his plan? Using my—most of the time dormant, but wide awake right now—Succubus instinct to lure me in? Was it why he added that last part in our oath, that he wouldn’t touch me unless I asked him to? That ass probably thought I’d end up begging him…
Well, fuck that.
“I thought you just didn’t feel it at first, that maybe it would take time for you.Maybebeing a Succubus numbed the feeling,” he continued when I stayed silent. “But since you have a mate—aNephilimmate, that you haven’t properly binded yourself to, I’m now assuming you’re just a selfish brat who decided that avoidance was better than whatever we could give you.”
His words snapped me out of my short trance.
“Excuse me?”
“No, I’m not sure I can.”
