“What does that mean?” I ask, flushing with even more embarrassment when I hear the unsteadiness of my own voice.
“Why don’t you just go back to sleep?” he suggests. “You’re safe. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“No. Tell me what that means. Am I going to hate you, Rafe?”
His lips curve up in a faint smile, but his eyes aren’t smiling. His amber eyes are sharp, almost predatory, glistening with something unpleasant. Something angry. He reaches a hand out and runs it along the curve of my jaw. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“You don’t care if I hate you?” I ask sharply.
“I didn’t say that. But it won’t change anything for us, will it? Look where we are now, essentially locked into a marriage of convenience. Hell, maybe making you hate me will wake you up. If you show me your fire, I’ll show you mine. That would be much better than this polite bullshit we’ve been doing.”
I can feel the thundering of my pulse in my neck. “I don’t know what that means. If you’re going to threaten me, can you be mor
e explicit?”
His hand drops and he rolls over, turning his back to me. “Go to sleep, kitten.”
27
Laurel
I lie there for a moment, processing his words and staring at the muscular expanse of his back. I can’t let him go to sleep like that.
“Rafe.”
I scoot closer, my nerves twisting up inside me. Reaching out a tentative hand, I wrap an around him until my fingers are skating down the muscles of his abdomen and I’m tucked snugly against his back. I’m not sure what the threat is, but I know there is one, and I’ve been too distracted to see it. I need to disarm him. I need to dissolve the need for the threat.
“Do you want to kiss me?” I whisper, my voice as tentative as my touch.
He’s silent for so long, it makes my stomach hurt. Then he says simply, “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”
Swallowing down the lump of nerves lodged in my throat, I pull him until he rolls over onto his back. He watches me, but doesn’t move another inch. I shift my weight, moving half of my body on top of him. My fingers move through his hair and I bend down to brush my lips against his, but it feels so hollow. Everything I feel right now is rooted in fear, not desire. Surely he can feel the difference. Surely it doesn’t feel the same when a woman kisses you because she wants you, and when she kisses you out of sheer desperation.
If there’s a difference to him, I can’t tell. He deepens the kiss, his big hand moving behind my head to cradle it and guide me closer. My heart seems to flip over in my chest. Rafe shifts my body until I’m fully on top of him. I close my eyes, but all I can see is the empty spot in Sin’s bed. As if my lungs are shrinking, it becomes harder to breathe. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
What happens if I don’t?
How am I supposed to abandon Sin in Vegas and go to Chicago? I don’t know if he’s safe. I don’t know if Rafe is vengeful. I don’t know the man whose bed I sleep in every night, and I’ve been so busy missing someone else, I haven’t made much of an effort to change that. I don’t owe it to him to do that, but it could be a grave misstep. I’ve heard stories about the twisted men in this family—what if he is one of them? What if I just don’t know that yet? What if I won’t find out until it’s too late to change anything, and my whole life becomes a nightmare?
What was it he said about Mateo’s dad and the woman he loved who didn’t love him back? That he became her monster.
Is there some version of a future where Rafe Morelli is my monster? Not because he loves me, but because I won’t stop longing for someone else and his pride won’t have it?
I pull back, pushing my fingers through my own hair to get it out of my face. Looking down at Rafe, I consider what I could ask to find out who he is. What he’s capable of.
“Tell me something,” I begin, watching his face. “You loved Ben, right? He was your hero? Your family, your boss…”
“Yes, I get the picture. Is that the whole question?” he asks, knowing it isn’t.
“He was murdered, wasn’t he? Did you know beforehand that it was going to happen?”
He watches me for a moment like he’s capturing data. Like I’m a study he’s working on, or perhaps an opponent he needs to understand in order to defeat. “Yes, I knew,” he admits. “Sin knew, too, in case you’ve decided to start imposing moral filters on all your love interests.”
“You made it clear Sin can’t be my love interest,” I state, since it’s the boldest I can be right now. Any bolder than that and I would be afraid I’d be admitting to something, endangering Sin with my hastily spoken words.
“Yes, I did,” he replies, reaching up a hand to cradle my neck. At least, I think he’s going to cradle my neck, but instead he closes his fingers around it and in one swift motion, he throws me down and pins me to the bed. I gasp, not so much because he still has his fingers closed around my throat, but because this feels like verification that his peacefulness is equivalent to a slumbering lion, resting quietly before attacking his prey and ripping out its throat. I hold his gaze warily, my heart dropping when he cocks his head almost mockingly and asks, “And did you listen?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I state. I keep my hands at my sides, refusing to even reach up and pry his hands off my neck. He isn’t applying any pressure, so there’s no urgent need to. I think he only wants to remind me of the power he could have over me, if only he deigned to reach out and grab it. How easily he could break me, if only he chose to.