Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
He practically rolls his eyes. “You make it sound so dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” I snap, voice a little too loud. “You kidnapped him. That’s not dramatic. It’s illegal.”
“Yet…you didn’t tell anyone.” He fires the words back with a raised eyebrow.
The allegation slices through me like a knife. He’s not wrong. I haven’t told anyone, but it isn’t to spare him. Without evidence, without knowing what I’m walking into, I can’t start speaking nonsense. No one will believe me. I don’t have to explain that to him, though.
“You’ve had days,” he continues, voice dropping. “Hours to spill the truth.”
Hours to consider how he would punish me this time when he caught me.
I take a step back and stumble as my heel catches on the lip of the rug. With him this close, it’s hard to remind myself he isn’t Aries. My body reacts to his proximity like he’s a live wire, but my brain screams WARNING!
“Why is that, Lilian?” His hazel gaze pins me to the floor. “Why haven’t you said a single word?” I try to think of a decent excuse, but nothing comes to mind. Think, say something. “Afraid of what I’ll do? Worried I’ll hurt you?”
My throat tightens. “I’m not scared of you, so if you came here to intimidate me into keeping quiet, it won’t work.”
He prowls forward, and for some stupid reason, I don’t move. I don’t even try to escape him. Probably because in some sick and twisted way, I don’t want to escape him. I want him to catch me and sink his teeth into my skin. “I’m not here to keep you quiet. You’ve already proven to me that you aren’t a risk.”
I don’t contradict him. Let him think I pose no threat. Then, once I have enough information, I can prove just how wrong he was, because I’m going to do whatever’s necessary to free Aries.
“If that’s true, then why are you here?” I almost regret asking the question, afraid to know the truth.
“To give you a reward, of course.”
My pulse spikes. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m going to give you pleasure instead of punishment this time.” The smile he gives me is terrifying. No matter what I’ve done since that night, I can’t get it out of my head. He’d fucked my throat raw, and I let him. I-I enjoyed it in some twisted, fucked-up back corner of my brain. The only thing I hate is that I thought I’d been giving Aries my first blow job...not his psychotic brother.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I say.
The words are firm, but my voice shakes. It wavers because I’m lying, because my body remembers things I wish it didn’t, and he knows it. Arson takes a step closer, the floor creaking faintly beneath his boots. The scent of him reaches me before he does—dark spice and danger, smoke and skin.
Resist him, fight the desire rushing through your veins.
It isn’t that easy, though.
“You keep saying that,” he murmurs, “but you haven’t left, haven’t run away or screamed for help. Part of me wonders…if maybe…” I don’t want him to finish that sentence because then I will have to face the fact that I’m choosing to let him touch me, choosing to be in his presence.
“Whatever you’re thinking is wrong. I don’t have to run to mean it.”
“No,” he agrees, “but you’re not pushing me away, either.”
He stands close enough now that the heat from his body brushes against me. Since I was sixteen, I’ve envisioned Aries doing these very things to me, whispering in my ear, touching me, and tempting me in sinister ways. It isn’t him doing any of those things, now, though. It’s his villainous twin brother, but my body refuses to acknowledge the difference.
Arson lifts his hand—slow, unthreatening—and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. I flinch, but it’s not because I think he’ll hurt me.
I flinch because he doesn’t.
“I’m not going to take anything tonight,” he says softly. “At least nothing you aren’t willing to give me.”
“I have nothing to give you.”
“Is that so? Then why are you shaking?” His fingers trail down the curve of my throat—light as a whisper, making it difficult to do anything but breathe. “You’re angry?” he confesses. “Disgusted? You hate me.”
I nod once, stiff.
“Ahh, but you’re also curious,” he adds. “And that’s what makes this so much worse.”
“I’m not—”
“You are,” he cuts in gently. “And that’s okay. You’re thinking about how it felt. About the way you moaned when you thought I was him. About how you begged for more even when your mouth was full of my cock.”
I need to get away from him, away from the truth. Taking a step back, I collide with the bookcase. There’s nowhere for me to go, and he follows, his six-foot frame towering over me. I should find him terrifying and imposing, but there’s a strange comfort in his closeness.