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“I don’t know you,” he says as he turns to face me. “Not beyond these walls.”
“You know more about me than anyone ever has before. The real me. You have stripped me naked from the inside out. You said I was yours. I am. I truly am.”
“This conversation is over. The sooner you wrap your head around what will be expected, the better.”
“No!” I scream. “I won’t. For your plan to work, you need me to agree. Once I’m not a prisoner, you won’t have full control, and you know it. So no, I won’t be cast off to raise the baby alone with occasional paternal visits. I won’t do it.”
I stand up and charge toward him. I am completely out of control, but the thought of being forced to leave him is far worse than the thought of staying and whatever discipline he will issue for my outburst.
“And I know something happened to you as a child,” I add. “I know something happened to your entire family to make you be this way. I found journals by your mother. I read them. I read about you and everything your family experienced. And I don’t judge you, Phoenix! I understand you. I feel you. Your black is my black. That abyss you swim in is the same murky waters I have. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that there is more between us? I told you I loved you, and I fucking meant it!”
Phoenix meets my charge and takes hold of my shoulders to stop me. He then grabs my neck and squeezes. “Do you have a death wish? Have I taught you nothing? I told you to never mention my mother. And where are these fucking journals?”
“At the manor,” I squeak. This is my first lie to Phoenix since my penance began. I don’t know why I don’t tell them they are in the next room, but I’m not ready to let them go. Not yet. Maybe they will help me figure out a way to soothe this beast before me.
“Don’t ever try to understand my family. Never again.”
“Why are you not listening to me?” I demand with wild eyes and fury building inside.
He squeezes my neck some more. He applies just enough pressure with his fingertips to make breathing difficult and to show me he is the one in control. “Because this is who I am. I’m a monster, not a husband. Don’t try to picture me as a man that I’m not.”
“I don’t have to picture it. I feel it,” I say with strangled breath. “You said yourself. You may be a natural monster, but I am a natural prey.” His hold on my neck loosens. “I was just a poor girl from the Eastside of Heathens Hollow. No connection other than with my sister, and even that in the last few years was distant. I was in an awful relationship and lived a miserable existence. Until you, Phoenix. Until you set me aflame with the things you did to my body. I felt alive while here. I don’t want death. And that was exactly what my life was before you. Death. So please, Phoenix. Keep my soul alive. Don’t allow my soul die. I want you to push past your boundaries and your thick walls.”
His hand on my neck moves, and he once again grabs a fistful of my hair. I hiss as the sting intensifies, but as I am about to beg for more, Phoenix brings his lips down upon mine. Passion erupts as he presses his tongue inside my mouth and dances it within. A kiss from my captor. His breath merges with mine as our bodies come together and our kiss intensifies.
“You don’t want this,” he says between his claiming of my mouth.
“I do.” I hold onto his shoulders, hoping to never let go. I hope desperately Phoenix will not force me to let go of the only thing—the only person—I want. I want this man and his attic.
Breaking the kiss but still holding me close, he says, “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can give you now.”
Fresh tears cloud my vision as I stare into his stern expression. Defeated, I shake my head as I look at my bare feet and whisper, “It’s not up to just you, Phoenix. I’ve done everything you have asked, but our future needs my input as well. I ask you to consider that. Consider me. Not the prisoner. But me. Me.”
Phoenix tilts my chin to make me look up at him and kisses me again softly but then nips at my lip. “I’ll think on it. That’s all I will say for now.”
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Phoenix
“Ani’s losing her mind,” I begin as Athena and I have just finished a meeting with our staff about moving from the Seattle penthouse. Ani is going to Spain, and me back to Olympus. They have their new orders, and I am confident all will run smoothly. I like the penthouse, but I’m uneasy, edgy, and my home is back at Olympus.
