My eyes pop open. “What? I don’t understand. Why would leaving you protect me?”
“Because it’s me you aren’t safe from.”
Chapter Twenty Six
At first I’m not sure I heard Jaak correctly. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m the danger, Meadow.” He moves my hand off him so that I’m forced to let go and takes a step away from me. He still hasn’t turned to face me. “I cannot be trusted around you while the potion influences me. If I do, I fear I won’t be able to hold myself back.”
“Hold yourself back from what?”
“From you. You are not safe with me.”
“I know the potion has made things…” I bite my lip and settle on “intense, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t-”
“You were going to say work together, weren’t you?” Jaak’s voice is lower, more rough. That delicately sharp edge I glimpsed earlier is back.
I nod because he’s right. I was going to say exactly that. “Yes, a-and I mean that. I really do.”
“I know you do. Far too innocent for your own good, Meadow. Naive enough not to see what’s very nearly here with you tempting me.” I’m about to ask what the hells that means when he goes on to say, “Tempting me to claim you. From finally tasting you on my tongue, from feeling the weight of your thighs over my shoulders.”
I stare open-mouthed. I’ve wanted Jaak all night, but I didn’t expect him to say that. My sweet, gentle husband is vanishing in front of me. by the second.
“Jaak…”
“You should go. This is your final warning. Pick a room. Lock the door and remain there until sunrise. Now.”
Part of me wants to run, I almost do but no…no.I don’t want to run from him. I want more. This has been what I wanted. The raw and ragged parts of Jaak that I know he’s kept from me. It’s all bubbling to the surface now. Desire weighs me down, keeps my feet rooted to the floor when Jaak orders me to go again.
“Go. Now, Meadow.”
I lift my chin in defiance. “No. There’s no reason for me to run and hide like a scared little mouse. I trust you. I-I can handle whatever comes our way. I can handle you.”
“Handle me? Oh, dear, sweet, Meadow. Then tell me, can you handle the hunger I have for you? Are you willing to sate my desire?”
“I-I-, I mean, well-l.” I’m stammering. I want to say yes, but everything is getting twisted up and coming out wrong. I want to say yes, so why is it so hard for me to say yes? I open my mouth again and my throat goes tight. Phantom hands wrap around my throat and cut my words off. The ghosts of my parents and the leaders I trusted, the people who I saw as all-knowing, they lean in close and whisper to me.
“You’re wrong inside. There’s nothing good in you. Do you know how cursed you are?”
“You’re lucky you’re a Blossom with the shame you bring to us.”
“Love is for children, Meadow. You’re ungrateful.”
Those were the words spoken to me, thrown at me, hurled like knives and bricks when I expressed any inkling of dissent or questioning about what my life as a Blossom would be, as a brideand the wife they trained me to be. I thought I did my best in shrugging them off, of keeping myself intact for the day I would finally be free of this place. When I would be in control of my life.
That day is now. Bummer I didn’t know how bone-deep their hold on me went until the moment I try to tell my husband what I want and I can’t. I’m super powered now, I supposedly can use magic, but on this one thing…I’m silent. Powerless. It’s not my voice that sounds, it’s their voices ringing in my ears. Shame burns bright in me at how small I let their ghosts force me to be.
I don’t want to be that girl anymore. My eyes drop to the floor. I can’t help it, the weight of it forces me down.
“Use your voice, Meadow.”
I gasp at Jaak’s voice but still no words come out. I look up, half expecting to find him looking at me the way he did when I got the plates down but he isn’t. He’s still facing away from me.
“Silence, still? Then will you allow me to use mine to tell you exactly what I want from you.”
I swallow hard, the sound is loud in my ears. “Yes,” I choke out, hands clasped in front of me. “Yes, I-I want to know.”
“I want to protect you, but that doesn’t seem to make sense to you so I will tell you what I want.” Jaak doesn’t hesitate, not like me. He starts speaking the second I give him the go ahead. “I want to have you beneath me, body mine to please and consume. You are my prize,mine, and I would ruin you for all others. Ruin you untilmy nameis the only word you are able to speak. I want to mark every inch of you until you're a weeping, mewling mess with your trembling thighs in my hands.” One of Jaak’s hands clenches. “Your thighs. I want to mark them, bruise them while I take you apart and devour you whole, your juices dripping down my chin, your taste on my tongue. I want your mewls, your cries, I want you to beg me to stop, even while you reach for me to beg for more. No matter how much you beg, I won’t stop. I’ll force another and another peak out of you until I’m satisfied. Iwant to command your beautiful body until it’s my name on your lips when they ask you about god and heaven, hell. All of it is my domain when it comes to you. All of that I want from you. Do you not understand that you are not safe with me? Do you understand me now, Meadow?”
