Page 11 of Slaying for Santa
She scoffs, shoving me back, and even though I could fight it, I don’t, letting my hands fall away.
“Men say that all the time and guess what? They get clingy.” She rolls her eyes like all men are pathetic. “Guess what Ihadto do to make them stop?”
My brows shoot up at her implication.
If she were anyone else, I’d say she’s implying she hurt them to try to scare me. But this is Bell fucking Bishop. It’s no implication. It’s the fucking truth.
“Did you make them scream, Belladonna? Make them bleed?”
“Of course.” She shrugs, like it’s a no brainer.
“What if I promise you can kill me if I get clingy?”
“I don’t need your permission to kill you, Kitty. If I want you dead, then dead you will be.”
My cock jerks at her words. I typically consider myself an alpha male. Hell, I sure as shit played that role in my platoon years ago, but the thought of this woman taking a knife to me and slicing my skin open… Fuck. I’m as hard as stone.
“So really, what you’re saying is that you like me. Otherwise, I’d be dead.”
She rolls her eyes again. “You’re an idiot, Kitson Hall.” She spins on her heel. “I’m going to unpack.”
“But you don’t even know what room is the guest room,” I snap, feeling annoyed that she’s leaving me here to deal with the fucking seven-inch monster tenting my fucking pants.
“I can find it,” she calls, disappearing down the hall, and I have to fucking fight the urge to chase after her like a fucking desperado.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
This is Bell. The emotionally damaged girl who used to wear her hair in two braids, with high collared dresses, every stitch of clothing black.
She was a Wednesday Addams lookalike if I ever saw one.
I know all about her past. I read the files she shared with me when I asked where she came from the third time Tillie brought her home from school and fed her dinner. She carried those damn files around like a security blanket, but I quickly learned when she handed them to someone to read over, it meant she trusted them.
She couldn’t say the words out loud, I guess. So she let me read all about her upbringing. The house she grew up in with her mother… and her father. How every night at eight o’clock, her dad would send her to bed, while she had to listen to him rape her mother.
Then, once that was done, they were both locked into the small section of the house that had no windows, where they would stay until he came to let them out at five in the afternoon the next day.
He’d made them his slaves, and up until Bell escaped when she was close to thirteen, she’d never seen another child, let alone kids her age. She only knew one life up until then, and she’d been conditioned to be emotionless, because showing emotions meant punishment, and her punishments were brutal.
“Tillie is the only person who understands me,” she said with her typical neutral expression when she was just fourteen years old. “So here are my files. Here’s what’s wrong with me, and why I’m different. I know you want to protect your little sister, but just so you know, I want to protect her too.”
She’d told the truth. She’d been doing that for years. Protecting Tillie. So when I enlisted in the Australian Army, Iknew my little sister would be okay until I could make something of myself and come back to her.
Shit. Bell Bishop.
She’s always been an anomaly I couldn’t understand.
Mainly, the way I was drawn to her.
Raking my hand through my hair, I turn back to stare at the painting Libi had done for her mother.
She wanted a black Christmas tree. It wasn’t the first time she asked for one. She’s been asking for it for the last two years. So, fuck Rhonda. If she’s gonna come in here, throw my stuff around because she thinks our daughter has the devil in her, then she can go get fucked.
Libi is getting that fucking black Christmas tree, tomorrow fucking morning.
Gathering up the torn paper, I slip it back into the drawer and flick the lights and TV off before moving through the ground floor of my house to double check the doors and windows are locked. I key in the pin for the alarm system, and turn to face the stairs.
Light flows down from upstairs as I take the steps, two at a time. The landing light is on, and the door to the guest room, right next to Libi’s room, is wide open.
