Running from hell isnʼt easy. Especially when thereʼs someone dragging you back down into it.
Belligerent, brash and always in shades of black, Freya is hardly a lady. Hidden away by her father, sheʼs lived a normal life despite being born into the...
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SHAME HITS ME LIKE a freight train. My bare feet meet the cool tiles of the floor as I slide off his lap, backing off him. My skin flames, replacing the fervent heat of his body.
Torren spreads his legs as he leans back on the couch, his attention on the screen.
He’s seriously focusing his gaze on the show.
How the hell is he so nonchalant? I grit my teeth. So much for seducing him. He’s so damn confusing. He was turned on by me. I know he was. So why didn’t he just give in?
“Someone would have paid good money for that,” I grind out.
He doesn’t even look up from the screen. “Too bad I just got it for free.”
Anger courses through my veins, and I stay rooted to the spot in front the couch, in between where he’s sitting and the TV.
He gives me a brief glace, annoyance flickering in his gaze. “I’ll pay you to get out of the way.”
I clench my fists at my sides. “You are such an asshole.”
“Took notes from your father,” he murmurs dryly.
I narrow my eyes. “And not your own?”
He shrugs. “Him, too.”
God. The senseless apathy rolling off him is infuriating. I’ve never wanted to physically hurt someone so much in my entire life.
“What do you want, huh?” I ask him. “One second you’re avoiding me like the plague, the next you’re murdering someone for me. Insulting me, then braiding my hair and feeding me. Just tell me what you want.”
He’s quiet for a while, simmering silently on the couch, before he finally decides to speak.
“Nothing,” he says, “I want nothing from you. Every second you’re here, with me is a second your father is worrying himself sick. And that’s enough for me.”
I grind down on my molars. “I’m done.”
He shifts his gaze to me again. “With what?”
“This,” I mutter, lifting my hands in exasperation. “You.”
His gaze turns molten, eating up every pore on my face. “Like hell you are.”
For a second, I’m tempted to spill it all. Everything — that I have an option to leave. To marry Rune Volkov and run far, far away from him and this place.
Instead, I draw back. Cool down. And say, “I’m not always going to be here.”
A quiet, dangerous calm settles in the air between us.
“Yes,” he says, quietly, “you are.”
He says it with such firm resoluteness, like he’s not the least bit insecure about what I’ve said. He just disregards it. Confidently.
