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It seems wiser to repeat the accepted story than delve into my self-serving reasons. “I don’t know if it’s safe out there for you, Callista.”
Her fingers play in my beard, nails dragging through it and across the skin beneath. “How can it not be safe when I’m under your protection?”
I stiffen under her. “I wish it were that simple, Beauty, but the only place I can assure your safety is within these walls. Not even the woods are safe, as you’ve unfortunately discovered.”
She shudders against me. “I learned my lesson on that. I will not be going out into the trees without you in the future.”
I chuckle and tip her head back so I can kiss her deeply, savoring the rich, spicy flavor of the meal she barely touched on her tongue. My body responds instantly, my cock growing hard under her lush ass, my hands tightening in her hair and on her thigh.
Breathless, she pulls away and captures my cheek in her palm. “Stop trying to distract me and tell me what you’re really scared of.”
Hell…
It’s only been a few weeks, and this woman can already read me so well, can already see through so much of the façade I’ve always had to keep so firmly in place. Telling her the truth would be as painful as letting her go, but she deserves at least that, since there are so many other things I can’t tell her.
“I’m worried you won’t come back.”
She pulls away from me slightly, her eyes wide. “Why wouldn’t I come back?”
“You and your father may run.”
Her light laughter fills the room. “Where would we go that you couldn’t find us?” One blond brow rises. “That’s what the Barkers do, right? You have people everywhere, connections you can utilize to get to people even if they flew halfway around the world…”
It isn’t really a question, more like an assumption on her part that happens to be true.
I nod. “That’s true.” Squeezing her ass, I tug her up against me, the heat of her pussy brushing my fingers at the crease of her thighs, making her wiggle in my hold. “But what if you decide to try it, anyway? What if your father keeps you there and doesn’t let you return?”
My words sound desperate and needy, even to my own ears.
Two things I haven’t been since long before this woman entered my life.
Her gaze softens, and she threads her fingers through the hair at my temples, holding me steady when the demons in my mind want me to fly off the handle. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
I hear the sincerity in her words, feel them deep in my chest, see it in the way she looks at me. Yet, a part of me knows it would probably be better if she did run.
She’s right that we would use our resources to try to find her, that I would. Because now that I’ve had her, I can’t let her go. Even if it might be what’s best for her, I’m a selfish prick who has become addicted to the beauty in my arms.
The longer I don’t react to her words, the more uneasy she starts to look, her humor fading, replaced with a question deep in her emerald eyes. “Am I still your captive?”
I stare at her and ponder the question I’ve been asking myself the last several days since I first took her in the library, since I crossed that line I never should have and then completely obliterated it by ending the fight altogether.
My answer will terrify her, but it’s the only true one I can give. “Not mine.”
She studies me as if she’s searching for the meaning behind my words, like it might lie somewhere in my gaze. But it’s just one of many things I can’t delve into with her. It would only make things more dangerous for her and us.
Finally, she bobs her head slightly. “That’s what I thought.”
An intense, soul-deep sadness fills her again, the same I’ve seen overtake her more and more often the last few days. It’s only going to get worse, until she slips into a full-blown depression that I won’t be able to pull her out of.
And I can’t bear to see her like that.
I’d rather face any consequences of this decision than witness Callista crumble and become a shell of herself.
I brush her blond locks back from her face and lean in to kiss her lips gently, taking both her cheeks in my palms. “Go see your father tomorrow. Stay for a day or two, no more, and then you’ll come back to me.”
She smiles against my lips and pulls back with tears in her eyes. “Thank you. I promise I’ll be back in a day or two.”
“A day or two.”
