“I should go.”
“Scared, Robin?” he asked.
“I don’t know what it is you want from me.”
“I want you to acknowledge that you may hate me, but a part of you, a part of you wants my touch.”
She shook her head. “You took me, remember? You forced me here.”
“That’s right. I did. But tell me now, Robin, why aren’t you running?”
She took a step back, hating how … right he seemed to be. “I can’t leave.”
“Not now. Not with me here and knowing I could have given you the idea.” Reaper sighed. “It’s okay.”
“Did you want to?”
“What?”
“Be with that woman? Did you want to be with her?”
Reaper didn’t answer right away.
“You know what, I don’t want to know.” She held her hands up and took a couple of steps back. She hadn’t been watching where she was going, and she was near the edge of the open pool.
She let out a cry as the ground suddenly left her. She expected the pain of hitting the bottom of the deep, empty pool, only the pain never came. Reaper had grabbed her and pulled her close.
“No,” he said.
“What?”
“No, I didn’t want to be with that woman. Why would I want to be with her when I had a perfectly good woman waiting for me back in my room?”
She frowned. Her heart raced. She could have seriously injured herself, or worse, died.
“I don’t know what you’re saying. We don’t do anything. I’m not giving you sex. How could you want to come back to the room with me?”
“Have you ever thought that there are times I just want to hold you?” he asked.
“You’re a monster.” She was more confused now than ever before.
“Am I? Well, I wonder how much of a monster you think I am when you wake up in my arms each morning. All these people, they want one thing. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t see the lust in their eyes, burning for each other. It doesn’t make them monsters, Robin. It makes them people. Fucking, taking, begging for it. It’s not wrong to want it. It’s not wrong to want me, and I know you do. You don’t think I feel a difference within you?”
He pressed a kiss to her head. “You’re tired. Come on.”
She didn’t put up a fight as he walked her back to their hotel room.
Why hadn’t she run?
It had been a long time since she’d even given running a thought. What was happening to her?
Preacher, she had to remember who she was trying to return for.
She took off her clothes and climbed into bed. Reaper did the same, and even though the room was in a blanket of darkness, she saw him. The outline of his body as he walked around the room.
The party was still going strong.
The bed dipped as Reaper joined her.
In her head, she counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
His arms wrapped around her.
She didn’t try to fight him. Closing her eyes, she felt his warmth seep into her flesh, and a deep calm settled over her. There was no way she could believe for even a second that she missed him. That she couldn’t sleep without him.
It wasn’t possible.
Falling for her captor wasn’t going to happen. There was only one man she wanted, and it was Preacher. She would return to him one day.
Until then, she had to remind herself that Reaper was a monster. He didn’t get to take her heart, and he certainly wouldn’t ever get her acceptance or her begging for him.
****
Present day
“No!”
“No?”
“You heard me. No.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Robin asked.
Preacher sipped at his scolding coffee, counting to ten in his head as he looked across the kitchen at his woman.
“Am I kidding you? Let’s see … no.”
“You can’t be the boss of me.”
“I know what’s good for you. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“You’re so frustrating.” Robin threw her hands up in the air.
She looked cute when she was annoyed. “Frustrating or not, it’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” She put her cup in the sink. “I mean, what exactly am I doing all day? I can’t go to high school because I’m twenty years old and that is so not happening. I sit around all day, going crazy. I’ve got to do something.”
“Then go shopping? Go to the spa. Or whatever it is you women do.”
“Do I look like a spa girl?”
“You wouldn’t even know what kind of girl you used to be.”
She glared at him, and he liked to see the fire in her eyes. Randall had told him anything could trigger her memory, and right now, he hoped something sparked. He loved Robin more than anything, but the more time he spent with her, the more he missed the woman who knew him.
He shared a great deal of his life with her, his art, his family. He’d given a part of himself to this Robin. He wouldn’t have even dreamed of telling her past self. The problem was her past self knew a great deal of loss and pain, and they shared in that.