My gaze falls to his bleeding hand, and I quickly rush to him, grabbing it and lifting it. The cut isn’t deep and won’t require any stitches. “We need to put something on it.”
“It’ll heal.” His breath fans my cheek, and my heartbeat speeds up when I realize our proximity. I swallow, moving back a little but still holding his hand. A zap of electricity passes between us. “I’ve had way worse.”
Yes. I’ve touched and kissed his body countless times, and now I have this deep urge to do that again.
To pay all his scars special attention, to try to soothe the pain just looking at them must bring him and show him how little they matter to me or whose blood runs through him.
Except I can’t do that, can I?
I’m his captive, and I refuse to sleep with my captor, no matter his reasons or the ways my body begs me otherwise.
Once upon a time, I promised myself to never settle for a man who’d try to clip my wings, and I intend to keep it.
Clearing my throat, I say, as owls hoot in the distance, creating a rather sinister energy around us, “I’ll help you catch him. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll bring him to you.” I bite on my lower lip. “I don’t understand what it is like to want to kill someone. I could never do it, even if I liked all these documentaries. I guess I got satisfaction knowing that all these pervs were dead, so people like us could get justice, you know? I never actually thought about what killing them entails.” I hook the strands of my hair behind my ears. It’s getting wet all over again in the rain. “However, I do understand wanting revenge and finding your sister.” Growing up with a madman like Jade, I’m terrified to think about this little girl having to be raised by that rapist. Hopefully, he hasn’t hurt her in any way. “I’ll help you and will never tell anyone about it. Your secret is safe with me.”
I don’t care if he killed those people, and I suspect everyone around me does it anyway, my brother included, so it’s not like I can choose a different family. Or want to, really.
If I ever find out they kill innocent people, though…I would report them all to the police myself.
He wraps his hand around mine, smearing me in blood, and pulls me close to him, our chests bumping against each other’s while his other hand laces through my hair, tilting my head back as he leans closer. “No. What part of being mine do you not get? Whatever I thought was possible just a month ago is not. I won’t allow him anywhere near you. Just the idea of him getting his hands on you drives me mad, wanting me to set everything on fire around me.” His thumb presses on my chin. “You’re essential to my very existence, Lavender, and that’s a curse and salvation at the same time for both you and me.”
He pushes me away and walks toward the garden, not bothering with the rain at all. I lift the skirt of my dress and follow him, hissing, “Where the hell are you going?”
“To my sanctuary.”
“In the middle of our conversation?”
“This conversation is over as far as I’m concerned.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I gulp for air since he moves so freaking fast, and in several more steps, we end up near the place where I lost my virginity.
Somehow, we’ve never come here again after that first time, and it’s completely different and magical at night.
The moonlight lights up everything around it, and the glass walls make the bed the center of attention, with a huge telescope pointed at the sky. It’s so dark that no stars shine there.
Heat travels through me the minute we enter, and silence falls on us, along with warmth and goose bumps covering my skin when he says, “I guess we have one thing in common with Robert. We’re obsessed with what and who we want to thepoint of insanity. The more I want you, the more he’d wish to hurt you because he knows how this works. He knows that, as long as you’re mine, you’re my greatest weakness and, in this, my reason to live. I won’t put you through that risk.” A hollow chuckle follows as he grabs a towel and throws it over my shoulders before picking one up for himself, drying his hair. “I won’t be like him. I won’t let my obsession put a woman in a cage and for her to end up hating me.”
My brow furrows. “You didn’t?—”
“Do not make excuses for me. You’re free to go. I’ll call Gordon so he can pick you up and take you home.”
I’m too stunned to say anything besides repeat after him. “Take me home.”
“Yes. Please understand something, Lavender. Doing that makes me go against my very nature, but I give you my word, I won’t bother you, and you’ll be free to live the life you want without me in it.”
What a lie.
He’d still watch over me and stalk my every move, so what he’ll give me is an illusion of freedom because that’s something I wish for, and he won’t have to feel like an asshole who hurt his mother.
Even though both of them have nothing in common.
He goes to the bedside table, and I notice he has a landline on it. He picks up the handset and presses the number, speaking after two seconds. “Gavin, call?—”
Before he can dish out his order, I rush to him and put the handset back, disconnecting the call as a bubble of laughter escapes me.
For the happiness surging through my veins and lighting up everything inside me finally breaks all the invisible chains that have held me hostage in my confused mind over the years,creating a shielding cocoon that prevented me from taking risks or believing in the impossible.
Levi gave me a choice, even if it meant going against his nature. He gave me a choice, and in this, he made himself my only choice.
