Page 109 of Brutal Vows
“Don’t gloat,” he warns, nipping at my lower lip.
“It’s just that I’ve never had such a beautiful man act so crazy over me before.”
When he lifts his brows and drawls, “Oh,really?” I know I’ve made a huge mistake.
I close my eyes and heave a sigh. “Go ahead. Get it over with.”
“It’s just that I could’veswornI heard you call me… what was it again?”
I mutter, “Impossible.”
“No, that wasn’t it. Hmm.” He pretends to think. “It could’ve been ‘beautiful.’ But perhaps I’m mistaken? Maybe I need you to say it again.”
“Or maybe you need to go find a speeding car to jump in front of.”
He slides his hand up my chest and encircles my throat with gentle pressure from his fingers. I open my eyes to find him gazing at me with such burning intensity, it makes me catch my breath.
His voice low and his eyes hypnotic, he commands, “Say it, viper. Tell me what you think of me.”
The way he’s wrapped around my body—legs, arms, and that big rough hand around my neck—should make me feel panicked. Or cornered, at least. Like a hunted fox, staring down its bloody end.
But all I feel is sheltered.
Secure.
As if his body is a shield instead of a weapon that could do me harm. For the first time in my life, a man feels not like war to me, but like home.
I gaze up into his eyes as an ancient calcified rock melts to warmed butter in the center of my chest.
Then I admit something truly horrifying.
“I think you’re a brilliant golden sun in a sky that’s only ever known the black and starless night.”
Through parted lips, he exhales a slow, astonished breath. His burning eyes could light the whole city on fire. When he touches my mouth, his fingers tremble.
I’m rescued from the feeling that I’m about to leap off a terrifyingly high cliff ledge and plunge headlong into a bottomless abyss when room service knocks on the door.
TWENTY-SIX
REY
We eat in silence.
More accurately, he feeds me forkfuls of food as if I’m an invalid, and I chew while neither of us speaks.
I don’t know how he’s feeling about all this, but I, for one, am terrified about what might erupt from my mouth next.
I’m in danger of composing more hasty and humiliating odes to his godlike beauty, so for the moment, I’m pretending to be a mime.
The filet is delicious. The asparagus is perfectly cooked. The mashed potatoes are pillowy, buttery perfection. All of it slips past my lips in small forkfuls that my new husband provides with the intense concentration of an explosives specialist defusing a ticking bomb.
In between bites, he lifts a glass of wine to my lips so I can sip from it.
It’s a testament to my new state of permanent mental disability that I don’t find any of that odd.
When I indicate I’ve had enough with a little flick of my fingers,he feeds himself. It’s like watching a National Geographic special about starving lions. It’s messy, savage, and over in ten seconds flat.
Then he shoves aside the plates, tears off both our fluffy hotel robes, picks me up, and takes us back to the bed again.
