Page 9 of Valentine's Slave

“You mean fucking,” I reply.

“Exactly. Right now, I’m calm and collected, polite. In the bedroom, I’m something else.”

“What, big and scary?” I chuckle.

“I don’t drink or smoke,” he says. “I drink very little coffee, and I don’t use social media at all. But this once-a-year event . . . it’s a way to feed the beast inside that I’ve starved for so long.”

I take another sip of wine and lean slightly closer, peering at him across the table, studying his elegant beard.

“What are you hungry for?” I ask.

Something dark flickers through his gaze.

“Destruction,” he says. “Bringing someone to their breaking point and watching them drown in their own pleasure.”

I’m not sure why I find that description enticing, but I do. “You still trying to talk yourself up, or are you doing reverse psychology now?”

“I’m giving you an honest taste of what you’re going to get,” he says. His tone is more authoritative, and yet, more distant. It seems to be less his own, exposing something that’s taken himover from the inside. Or maybe that’s the real him, and the rest is all an act. I still don’t know if he’s even safe, if I should be anywhere near him, let alone getting naked, letting him inside me. But I’m getting wet just thinking about it. That just shows that I must have a death wish, or a danger kink.

“And what exactly am I going to get?” I challenge, looking straight into his eyes. I’m not afraid of this handsome, hairy man who thinks money can buy him everything. He can’t break me. He can’t even have me unless I let him.

“More than you bargained for,” he says, his lips curving up into a smile as he pours me another glass of wine.

“You’re trying to get me drunk, aren’t you?” I say.

His eyes glisten. “I never said I was a good guy.”

“Your uncle did.”

“And you believed him?”

I wonder if he’s doing this on purpose, playing a dangerous game to make me hot for him. Or maybe it’s makinghimhot.

“I’m observing you,” he says quietly. “Ever since the beginning, I’ve observed. Everything you do or don’t do means something, and I’m reading all the signs.”

“And what does this sign say?” I ask, taking another swig of wine.

“That you want to let go,” he says. “You want to forget.”

He’s slightly leaning forward in his chair, but still sitting up perfectly straight, that grey suit and red tie catching my attention, and how his broad shoulders fill out the jacket. I wonder if he has tattoos. I bet he does.

“Forget what?” I ask.

“The past. The present. Worries about the future.”

“That’s pretty vague,” I retort. “I wouldn’t suggest you go into tarot card reading.”

And then he takes my right hand in his just as I reach for my glass of wine. His fingers are long and warm.

“You’re broken,” he says, his voice raspy. “You want me to break you even more so that you can feel me close, so I can hold all your pieces together even as I tear them apart.”

Maybe he should be a poet. A morbid one. This shouldn’t be turning me on.

“And you—you’re not broken?” I ask. Everyone is fucked up in their own way, and I don’t deny I have my shit.

“Oh, I am,” he says, and his black eyes are swirling, holding mine as if I’m already his. His fingers tighten around mine. “But I’m not afraid of it anymore. I look straight into its eyes and make it my own. That’s why I bought you—because I refuse to hide that part of myself anymore. I’ll let it out. I’ll let it have its way with you, and I’ll revel in it.”

My fingers are slick with sweat. “You haven’t bought me yet,” I whisper. “I haven’t signed anything.”

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