Page 123 of Drowning in Darkness

“James?” I whisper.

He releases my wrists from the belt and drags in a breath. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have never.” He takes a step back and swipes a hand through his hair.

I stand. “What are you talking about? I was right there with you.” He shakes his head and avoids my gaze, creating an unacceptable chasm between us. I reach out to catch his wrist. “Don’t do that. Don’t cheapen what we just did.”

He moves so fast it steals my breath, shoving me against the door with his body caging mine, his arm leaning against the wood above my head. “I just treated you like a slut, and you were into it?”

Something ugly twists in my chest, but I wrestle it back. “You don’t mean that.”

He tilts his head. I can see the real man is now shielded behind the mask of the cult leader, whose every action is to dominate, create fear, and control evil. “You aren’t special, sweetheart,” he says, flicking a lock of my hair over my shoulder and leaning down to my ear. “You want some home truths? You are one of hundreds who have gotten down on their knees for me, and each one of you thinks you’re unique. You all do this with the hope to trap the devil you should never desire in the first place. You are already a fading memory before your throat has cleared of my cum.”

He shoves off the wall and turns on his heel to stalk away from me while I remain against the door. I will only chase him for so long. “James?” He pauses but doesn’t turn around. “If I were just a fading memory, then you wouldn’t be replaying the way my mouth felt around your cock.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Your one quality, to have never felt a dick in your mouth, is now spoiled. Go find yourself a white picket fence and that Prince Charming you need to make pretty babies with.”

I don’t want pretty babies, and I definitely don’t want some wholesome prince who would run a mile if I was as honest with him as I’ve been with James. I’m not willing to live a lie for any man, and I won’t let him ruin any of the memories between us.

“Careful, James,” I call out as he pushes open his bedroom door. “Only someone who cares deeply would work this hard to wound. There’s a reason they say there’s a fine line between love and hate, and you, my dark prince, are toeing it.”

The door slams shut, and I huff as I massage my wrists. He needs a few hard truths too, and I’m just the woman to deliver them to him.

FORTY-TWO

JAMES

Beware of a woman who knows her worth, because she sees straight through the lies.

When the bed shifts, I’m not in the slightest bit surprised. This woman can see straight through me like no other before her, so while I’m one hundred percent sure the correct course of action is to remove her, I don’t have it in me. The lies I hurt her with earlier replay in my mind, the gnawing guilt churning in my gut.

She tears the comforter off my body and straddles my chest. I eye her hard, tensing. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Give me your hands.”

Her long hair tickles my chest, and the shadows shift around her. She’s not naked, so maybe I have a fighting chance at not giving in to her. My hands lift, drifting over her hips and discovering she’s wearing my shirt. Scratch that. I have no chance.

“Above your head, James,” she demands. Well, this is new, and color me curious about where she’s going and what she’s thinking.

I oblige, and the familiar leather wraps around them before she loops it through the solid, thick bed frame and tugs it tight.

I both want to see her more clearly and don’t. Because every interaction, every look, every touch is torture, knowing I can’t have her, not really, not in the way she needs.

She switches on the bedside light, bathing the room in a golden glow that makes her look like an avenging angel. I’m so fucked.

“You comfy?” she asks, her tone biting, stare unforgiving. I’d be more comfortable naked and buried inside her body. I glance at her hands. Her nails are painted sky-blue.

“Relatively speaking.”

“Good, because I’m about to give you some hard truths, James Austin.”

My jaw flexes, spine rigid. “This should be good.”

She parks her hands on her hips, still straddling me. Adorable, stunning, devastating.

I should push her away, hit her with lies to make her run from me. But as I stare into her eyes, I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Miss Stephanie King isn’t running scared, and shit if watching her be so much more than I gave her credit for isn’t impressive. If she can be honest and unflinching, then I’m done trying to protect her by hurting her.

She shakes her head and huffs. “Now I have you tied up, unable to run away and disappear into whatever bullshit codependent relationship you have going on with that ax.”

My lips twitch. “It’s winter. We need firewood, and there’s a storm coming in.”