Page 44 of Savage Sin

How can that comment weigh on my heart? He speaks only the truth. But I know something else. He’s not the madman I profess him to be. He’s wounded and grieving.

“Who did you hurt?”

He raises his other hand and slides it around the back of my neck and draws me in until our foreheads touch. “Don’t hold false feelings for a man you know nothing about. If I kill someone, they earned it. Another truth.” He breathes out slowly, his thumb resting over my pulse point.

“You’re all about truth, are you?”

He raises an arrogant eyebrow should make me want to slap him, but it gives me chills instead.

He towers over me, toe-to-toe. I have to crane my neck to meet his heavily hooded gaze. “I see no reason to lie. I have nothing to hide.”

Shivers scale over my body. Call me just as insane as he is, but right now, I believe him.

He pulls back, and I watch hungry eyes shift and turn dull with pain. I can feel it radiate outward and nearly crush me under the weight. Now that I have my arms free, I can wrap him in my arms and comfort him, but there’s a shield between us. A wall separating his pain from mine. A wall of mistrust.

“I’m not trying to protect my father, if that is what you are thinking.”

“Then who are you trying to protect? Tell me.”

It’s not that I think Rage will blaze in and kill my twin sister anymore, but he’s desperate and could use her to get what he wants, just like he is using me. I can’t have that, so while it would help my cause to spill my guts to him, it won’t help her and because of the baby, I have to put a choke hold on my thoughts automatically falling to my tongue.

“No one. I just don’t enjoy feeding the machine of violence. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Even you must have heard of that adage.” Ripples of muscles pass from the tops of his shoulders to the V of his hips until it disappears behind the band of his jeans. I don’t know the brand or anything beyond the dark black material of the denim. It doesn’t matter. My mind trips over to the fact that he fills them out perfectly.

What looks like more dry blood is splattered over his arms.

“Come with me.”

Eleven

Persephone

When I don’t reply, Rage lowers himself until our eyes are level and uses the calmest voice I’ve ever heard on a man. “You can fight me or smell like wet dirt and honey all night. When you get itchy and attract a hungry bear, I will open the door for it and see how fast you come running to me.”

I stab a finger in his direction. “You try to feed me to the bears and—”

He takes my shoulders and turns me around, pushing me up the flight of stairs and through a door.

“And nothing, Persephone Castel.”

He throws it open and behind the highly polished oak is a lustrous bathroom in all white, golds and creams. Just like the bedroom. Several towels, a glistening shower stall, and a deep jacuzzi all beckon me closer. This time around, I take a moment to enjoy the polished marble, too. My discarded towel and the borrowed shirt I had on are where I left them the last time I was in here.

“Sorry,” I offer sheepishly when he bends and picks them up.

A massive mirror is on the wall behind. It’s hard not to miss the dark shadows rimming the underside of my eyes. My hair is a matted mess of dirt and knots. I also see a blush on my cheeks. I tell myself it’s from excursion and not how the heat rolling off Rage is comforting.

Rage steps up behind me; his presence is all-consuming and powerful. A man who thinks the world revolves around him. Such arrogance.

Rage. Frustration and an unwanted amount of defeat shadow the fight I have in my heart.

How can such a beautifully rugged man be cruel yet tender? Better yet, is it an answer I really want to find out?

My heart stutters and trembles in my chest. I’m on the verge of tears as I hold his gaze. “Rage, I’m scared. What’s happening to me? Why do I hate you one minute and then want you to miss me until my heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to break into jagged shards on the floor?” Making myself vulnerable has my heart on full display. Just because I am not telling him everything doesn’t make what I just said any less true.

Knowing I have little to no control over anything right now, the fight in me fades to a whisper and leaves my muscles feeling weak. No matter how much strength I have deep down, I feel exposed and breakable.

Rage takes my shoulders in hand and turns me to face him. Cupping my face, the monster who kidnapped me, tied me to his bed, and demanded I give up my family says the damnedest thing to me.

He gives a low, sexy laugh. “Your soul craves connection, my beautifully wounded goddess. Give yourself time. The wall of glass around your heart will turn to cement soon enough. Don’t rush it.”

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