Page 80 of Sweet Nightmares
“And you lied.” His voice was rough, and she thought it was possibly a little hurt.
“The night you killed my husband was not the first night he hit me.” She absentmindedly rubbed the phantom marks of her dead husband’s fingerprints on her neck. “He would hit me daily if he could. It was a sport to him.”
Nightmare snarled. “If I could kill him again, I would do it slower.”
Jane pinched her eyes shut for a moment, her held-back emotions bursting at the seams, stinging and painful. “You took away the one thing that brought me happiness in a sea of brokenness.”
Then she let him see everything. Six years of pain. No, nineteen years of holding in pain—everything from the moment her parents died. She gave him all of it and, strangely, he held it. Quietly and calmly, he gave her room for all of it.
In a moment of lull, after twenty minutes of just being there with her, he said, “I’m sorry.” Only two words. He let her see him, and she believed that, possibly, he might have meant his words. He might actually feel bad about what he had done. “I wish for you to dance. I wish for you to do whatever you would like to do with your body.” A command. A magical one. It was the most freedom he’d ever given her… possibly breaking all the commands that came before.
Jane whimpered. Her chest ached with pain and a hint of happiness. She’d longed so long for this—to get her dance back. To be whole again.
“What else do you want… no, what do you need from me, Jane? he asked.
“Let me go,” she breathed. “Let me be free.”
He dipped his head, nearly hanging it. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you want this?”
Jane frowned, sinking into the water, allowing it to cup her skin. She ran a finger along the porcelain. “I want space. I want to choose what happens to me for the first time in my life. I want to be free to do whatever it isI want.”
He lifted his head and leaned over the tub to see her fully. “I left you alone for two years.”
“Because you were angry. You withdrew your presence because you were hurt. That wasn’t for me, and it hurt me too, Alexei.” Her lips fell below the water, and only her nipples peeked out. The chain of the necklace holding her wedding ring floated for a moment between her breasts and then fell between the mounds. She submerged herself fully, closing her eyes and sinking into the heat. When she came back up, she said, “You were still present. I felt your anger like a ghost haunting me, and even in those two years, you still commanded me. I always do what you want. I live at your whims.”
Nightmare grazed the water with his fingertips, next to one of her breasts. “You want to be free,” he parroted her earlier words.
“Yes.” Her body twisted into the water, and she faced him more fully.
“I’ll give you five days.”
What? Jane sat up, bringing her head out of the water. Was he serious?
Nightmare’s silver eyes swirled and sparked. He was serious.
Jane wiggled her nose and bit her bottom lip, narrowing her eyes on him. “Twenty days. Free me from our bargain for twenty days.”
“Six.”
“Fifteen.”
“Eleven.”
“Deal.” She smiled, water trickling down her forehead, and he glared. “I will come back to you. I promise. But I want you to prove that you can think of what someone else wants besides yourself.”
He growled. “I care about what you want.”
“I believe that… sometimes.”
“Eleven days, but our deal will automatically shift into place again, no matter what happens.”
“No matter what,” she agreed. “But I want to be fully free, Gavriil. I am going to leave my ring here. I will not be your anchor, and you will not spy on me. You will actually let me have a week outside of your influence and eyes.”
“I didn’t always spy on you.” It seemed important to him that she know that.
