Renata
When Kian leaves, I pull at my restraints with frustration. They’re long tethers that give me a certain amount of freedom on the bed, but I still can’t walk more than a foot away from each side.
I groan angrily, but my strength is failing fast. The first twenty-four hours was the easiest. But now, the hunger has really set in. It’s leaving me light-headed, almost hallucinatory. Which is the only justification I have for why I’d told Kian so damn much about my life. It’s the only justification I have for almost telling him about my deepest, darkest secret. The one I’ve spent my life trying to bury underneath feigned strength.
I never talk about. I barely even think about it. Because that way, it’s like it never existed.
Years of silence. Years of suppressed emotion. Buried memories. And yet, after half an hour with Kian O’Sullivan, I can feel the story rising to the surface in a desperate need to qualify my own pain.
What does it even matter? He doesn’t really care about me. I’m just a pawn in his game. I’d be a fool to think he has any real desire to protect me. The restraints speak for themselves.
But I can’t help thinking that I’d be having a very different reaction if another man were to have tied me up like this. If this were Rokiades’s house, I’d be sick with fear.
Then again, if this were Rokiades’s house, I have no doubt that I’d have already been raped ten times over by now. Kian, on the other hand, hasn’t laid a finger on me.
Tired of struggling and tired of thinking, I lie back against the sheets spread-eagled. I close my eyes and try to shut him out of my head. Of course, all that does is ensure that he’s the only thing in my head.
Unable to do anything else but stare at the ceiling, I start to drift off a little. If nothing else, it’s a nice distraction from the hunger.
But the next time I blink, I realize I’m not alone.
Kian is back in the room. He’s standing off in the corner, regarding me with a seductive gaze that makes my body heat up.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, trying my hardest to sound angry.
“Watching you.” His voice is weird. As if he’s underwater or down a well. The light coming into the room is weird, too. Everything is slightly off-kilter. Reality doesn’t feel real.
“Why?”
“You know why.” He pushes himself off the wall and saunters over to the foot of the bed. He stands directly between my legs, his eyes languishing over my body like he owns it.
Then he gets on the bed. I tense up. But not because I’m scared. No, it’s much worse than that.
It’s because I’m excited. Aroused. Lustful.
“Stop,” I whimper.
“Why?” he asks casually. “You don’t actually want me to.”
“You can’t do this.”
“You can stop me if you want,” he says.
“How can I when you’ve chained—”
I break off mid-sentence when I realize my restraints have disappeared. I’m no longer confined to the bed. I sit up and my face almost collides with Kian’s.
His blue eyes carry hints of green around the irises. I haven’t noticed that before. But then, I’ve never been quite this close to him before.
“You want me to stop?” he asks, his hand moving up my right leg.
“I… I…”
“All you have to do is say the word, Renata.”
Fuck, I love the way he says my name. Guilt crashes over me as I struggle to form the word that will force him to stop touching me. I just have to say it. Say it. Say it. Fucking say it!
I can’t.