Page 76 of Torn By Fate

My husband’s lips curled. “You speak such sweet lies, but they are getting less convincing,” he said, and I could hear the amusement in his voice, the quiet satisfaction that he could read me so easily.

“You’ve been lying here in this bed for hours,” Adrian continued. “Your breathing hasn’t changed once. You haven’t moved. You can’t sleep.”

“Maybe I’m just not tired.”

“Maybe you’re full of shit.”

The corner of my mouth twitched against my will. I pressed it flat, but the damage was done. He’d seen it, that involuntary crack in the carefully composed armor I had built around me.

“There it is,” he murmured. “I knew she was still in there somewhere.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

I made a frustrated sound in the back of my throat. “Don’t act like you know me.”

“I know enough.” His voice dropped lower, losing the teasing edge, replaced with a more serious cadence. “I know you’re drowning in your own head, and I know you won’t ask for help because asking for help means admitting you need it, and you’d rather chew glass than admit you need anyone.”

My throat tightened.

The accuracy of his deduction was offensive.

“I don’t need help,” I said.

“You need to feel something that isn’t fear.” He paused. “Or anger.”

God, I needed him to stop talking. “Shut up.”

Adrian shifted on the bed, the leather belt creaking softly as he adjusted his bound wrists. “Make me.”

I turned my head and found him watching me with an expression I couldn’t fully understand.

“You don’t have to keep doing this to yourself,” he said. “Torturing yourself. Replaying whatever memory you can’t seem to escape in your mind. You’re letting it eat you alive.”

I opened my mouth to deny his words, but he cut me off.

“I can see it.” His gaze traveled over my face, lingering around my eyes and then to my tightened jaw. “You’re wound so tight you’re going to snap, and when you do, it won’t be pretty.”

“I’m fine,” I said, scoffing a little.

I really was a liar…

He clocked me so well.

“You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since the night you pulled that trigger.” He said the words without any accusation, without any true anger. He was just simply stating a fact. “You need to feel something else, Serafina. Something that isn’t the wound festering inside you.”

“How about you stop psychoanalyzing me?” I rolled my eyes. “You seem to be interested in a change of career. Is ‘therapist’ your new job description?”

“I’m not psychoanalyzing. I’m offering.” The faintest smile touched his lips. “Let me help you forget. Just for tonight. Let me give you something to feel that isn’t the memories that haunt you.”

My jaw loosened, and I blinked.

Did he mean what I thought he meant?

Was he… offering… sex? Pleasure?

God, he really was maddening.