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“Cold?” he asks, and I nod.
He unbuttons his black shirt and comes around the island to help me into it. It’s huge on me, draping over my thighs like a shirt dress. He has to roll up the sleeves so I can eat. My heart slams happily in the cage of my ribs as he dresses me. He purses his plush lips and fiddles with the fabric, his nimble fingers tucking and straightening the black silk.
And when he returns to the stove, leaving me sitting there in the soft shirt that smells of him and still retains his body heat, I want to cry.
I stare at the shirt buttons. I get it now. This is how he’s going to break me. Not with cruelty. With kindness.
Shirtless, Victor finishes cooking his own meal. The muscles in his back and shoulders ripple with each lazy movement. “You’re not eating,” he says with a frown, and my heart leaps. Will he punish me? Drag me back to the cage?
I glance at the heavy door that leads to the hallway. If only I had made it out.
“Lula. You must eat.”
“Or what?” I ask, my stomach roiling. “You’ll hurt me?”
He drops his elbows to the white quartz on either side of his plate and leans in. “No. I won’t hurt you again unless you beg me.”
I hiss in a breath. The scent of the food is making me so weak I might fall off the stool, but every cell in me wants to fight. “Are you insane?”
“Probably.” He picks up his fork and digs into his eggs. “The official diagnosis is antisocial personality disorder.”
“I’m not going to beg you.”
He smiles at his plate.
“I’m still going to fight you,” I say, testing the words.
Okay, he signals. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I dig into my omelet.
It’s fucking delicious.
Victor finishes his food before I do. I take my time, savoring each buttery bite, hoping if I draw out this meal, I’ll be able to put off whatever happens next.
He watches me with a half smile as if he knows what I’m doing but finds it amusing.
“How long did I sleep?” I ask, less hoping he’ll tell me and more to stretch meal time.
“Long enough. I would’ve stayed with you, but I had business.”
I use my fork to cut a piece of omelet into a perfect golden square. “What sort of business?”
“Tracking down Stephanos.” He says it calmly, as if he didn’t just drop a live grenade into the conversation.
“Why?”
“He owes me. The last payment for my last job.”
“David,” I say, and he nods.
“He paid the first half promptly. But before I could collect the second half, I was incapacitated.”
Because I shot him. “That’s a shame,” I say with a straight face.
“Indeed.” He clears his plate and washes it right away. It would take me a few seconds to rush around the island to jab my fork into his kidney. But I doubt he’s distracted enough to let me. Besides, the pale, muscled expanse of his back is so pretty. And I want to keep eating.
“Stephanos has gone to ground,” Victor tells me as he cleans up the cooking area.
