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“No, Blackbird. He would just kill me himself.”
My shock was apparent in my sharp intake of breath, because I knew from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth. What kind of life was Lucas talking about where men would do this to each other? “That’s heartbreaking.”
“It’s really not,” he said honestly, and rounded the edge of the bed to sit on it. Leaning forward, he cupped my face in his hands. “What’s heartbreaking is watching your spirit shatter—and knowing it’s my fault—while years of training tells me that it’s what I have to do, that it’s what’s right.” His full lips pressed to my forehead and stayed there when he spoke again. “I’m sorry, Briar. I am so sorry. You can hate me all you want. I’ll always hate myself more.”
“Then don’t be this way,” I begged, gripping at his arms. “Don’t do these things.”
When he pulled away, I could see that that wasn’t even an option. “I have to be like this. I have to teach you.”
“But you aren’t that man, you said you couldn’t be that man. And I’ve seen that you don’t want to be, I can see it now. Maybe you thought that you needed to do these things and live a certain way, but that was before you bought me . . . before you had your first girl, so—”
“No. I can assure you that this wouldn’t be happening if I’d bought another girl that day,” he said firmly. “I needed you from the moment I saw you, but I knew that need for you would get in the way of what I had to do to you, so I almost didn’t bid on you.”
“Why did you?”
“Bid?” he asked, and the second real smile I had ever seen lit up his face, making him so achingly beautiful. “Because, Blackbird, you started singing.”
His admission had old suspicions rising in my chest. “The seller was mad when I started singing . . .”
“I’m sure he was. Every man there stopped bidding as soon as you started. I remember thinking you were brave for singing in the middle of an auction. Obviously I know now that it was because you were scared, but it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t let anyone take you after that.”
My eyes snapped up to his. Even through my suspicion, I couldn’t stop feeling surprised. In the four years I’d been with Kyle, he’d never once noticed or understood that singing went hand in hand with fear. And this man had figured me out within weeks, maybe less.
“What other rules are you breaking with me?”
He watched me for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Some things are better left unknown—at least for tonight, Blackbird.”
I nodded, accepting that. He still evaded answering every time I asked how long I had been gone. For all I knew, the women weren’t allowed to know the rules, and he would continue to say that same thing.
“There have been a few times I was supposed to teach you a lesson for something you did or said, and I couldn’t bring myself to even try,” he confessed, surprising me. His next words seemed detached, and he wouldn’t look at me. “The times I have tried . . . William thinks that I’ve actually raped you. I was supposed to. I know how to teach girls lessons by showing them that I am in control at all times—never them—and not care, but I couldn’t force myself to do that to you. Then after each lesson, I’m supposed to leave you for a certain amount of time, but I hated myself after that first night with you and just needed to check on you. Thank God I did,” he said with a huff. “But the other times, I just kept thinking about that broken look in your eyes, and I couldn’t bring myself to give you a lesson. I forced myself to leave instead of going through with it. The other night . . . William had come back and was with me when the shopper came to me with the number.”
My surprise that William had come back, and that Lucas had let him inside, didn’t go unnoticed, but he simply gave me a look that let me know it wasn’t a subject he would discuss.
“Even if William hadn’t been there, I would’ve known I needed to take back control with you. But your screams before I even touched you made me want to die. I don’t know how long I sat there as years of training flashed through my mind while I tried to tell myself to leave before I could hurt you.”
My eyes widened, and something in me clenched, knowing I’d had it all wrong. The fear that had built during that silent time hadn’t been something he’d planned or been enjoying, but had been minutes of his own torture.
His large hand slid around the side of my neck, and his thumb brushed along the hollow of my throat when he said in a low, rough voice, “Girls are not supposed to receive any pleasure for the first year. It makes them think they have power when they shouldn’t.” The corner of his mouth twitched, hinting at a smile. “I think last week already proves I can’t control myself with you.”
At that time, his touches had felt like a lesson in itself—it surprised me that they hadn’t been allowed at all.
My cheeks burned as I remembered every touch from him, my breaths deepened at their memory. Or maybe my response was from his touch and his voice now . . .
I could feel something changing, a shift in the air between us, and though I knew I should try to stop it, I was powerless to do so. “Oh.” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, and some distant part of my mind wondered when we had gotten so close, and who had moved toward the other. “Is that all? For tonight anyway?”
Lucas’s eyes danced over my face again and again, indecision and worry twisting through them. “And this,” he said roughly just before his lips fell onto mine.
Chapter 20
Blissful Death
Briar
A whimper of surprise sounded in the back of my throat and I became lost in our kiss. My first reaction was to stop it, because the man with his lips pressed firmly to my own was not my fiancé, and I knew . . . I knew from the bottom of my heart that I needed to continue hating the man holding me. But even if I could stop that man and get away with it, there was no stopping that kiss.
The emotions that rushed through me when his mouth moved against mine were a force all on their own. I was lost to them and him.
My hands wove through his dark hair in a weak attempt to keep him there—to keep Lucas. I was terrified of the moment he would wrench himself away from me, the moment his eyes would turn cold and murderous, but my movement seemed to incite something inside him.
