Page 185 of Glutton for Punishment

Why does that feel… wrong?

But it dissolves the moment I look at him again. His golden eyes narrow as suspicion flickers across his face.

“Why?” he asks with distrust.

The question unsettles me more than his grip does. Why would he ask me that?

Why wouldn’t he know everything I feel?

Fear rushes in. Not because I’m afraid of him, but I fear disappointing him. What if he doesn’t understand how much I love him?

“Because you’re mine. And I’m yours,” I blurt. I struggle against the ropes, desperate to reach out to him. Desperate to make him understand. “It’s only you. Everything begins and ends with you. I can prove it. I can show you—just tell me how I can prove it.”

My chest aches with how much I mean it, and emotion clogs my throat. The words feel like truth carved into me, undeniable and absolute. His eyes never leave mine.

I lean forward as much as the restraints allow. “You are my entire world.”

Vex studies me as his suspicion melts away, and a smile spreads across his face that makes me feel like spiders are crawling across my skin. His thumb brushes across my cheek.

“So you are weak enough to fall under my spell,” he murmurs to himself.

Confusion presses at the edges of my thoughts again, like something trying to push its way through fog.

A spell?

The word echoes around my head, catching on something jagged and uncomfortable. What is he talking about?

There’s no spell. There’s nothing artificial or wrong here… Only certainty that he’s mine. Right?

That certainty wavers for the briefest moment. Something flickers. A small, uneasy sensation I can’t quite name. It doesn’t belong in the shape of how I feel, and yet it’s there anyway, scratching lightly at the inside of my mind.

Then he leans closer, his hand resting on the arm of my chair as his face moves toward mine.

Everything dissolves into a distant haze until it’s only the shape of him, just the space between us collapsing inch by inch. The universe pulling us together like magnets.

Yes.

Yes, this is right. This is what everything has been moving toward. His lips are so close now I can almost feel the moment before they touch mine…

A sharp, sickening rejection floods through me as I jerk my head to the side instinctively, right before our lips touch. My cheek presses against the back of the chair as I pull away from him, and revulsion crashes through me.

My mouth goes dry.

What?

My gaze drops to my lap, searching my own form for some clue, some sign of what just happened. But there is only the familiar shape of my legs in their bindings, the chair’s unyielding frame, the room’s sterile perfection holding its breath around me.

Why did I do that? I love him. My hands tremble.

He exhales like I’ve disappointed him, and my stomach twists into dread and sorrow.

“Looks like we have a little more work to do yet,” he murmurs, annoyed.

Then his tone shifts, smoothing out again as if the moment of resistance never mattered.

“For now, I’ll have you join me for a meal.”

He moves without urgency, unfastening the binds on my wrists. Relief floods through my aching shoulders as circulation returns to my hands. I rub them to get the blood flowing.