ABERRANT TENDERNESS

CHAPTER 8

Dropping my arms, I nodded.

  His long fingers untangled the adornments from my curls quickly. Then he stepped back again.

  “Thank you,” I managed to say.

  I forced myself toward the bed and lay down flat on my back, my fingers splayed out against the smooth fabric of the blankets.

  kinn regarded me coolly. He stepped up to the bed. Tall and muscled and deadly cold, he didn’t look like this affected him in any way. He reached for his belt and unbuckled it. Terror clogged my throat. I looked away, fighting weak tears. From the corner of my eye, I saw him remove his boxers, and then he climbed on the bed, naked and determined. I trembled. I couldn’t stop myself.

  His hand touched my waist then slid up slowly. The touch was light. I jerked away. “Don’t touch me.”

  His eyes were hard and cold as he looked down at me. “You know I can’t. I won’t give your family any cause to take bangkok as weak.” It wasn’t said in a cruel way. He stated facts.

  “I know,” I whispered. “Just don’t touch me. Just do what you must.” If there was any leading up to what was to come, I wouldn’t be able to contain my terror.

  “If I don’t prepare you, it will be very painful.” He sounded like he didn’t care either way. “It would be better if we got you to relax.”

  That wasn’t going to happen. “Just do it,” I said. Pain was okay. I could deal with it.

  He regarded me for a couple of moments more. Then he pulled back his hand from my ribcage and sat up. His fingers hooked under the hem of my brief, and he slid them down. A low whimper wedged itself in my throat.

  He moved one knee between my legs, parting them, his gray eyes on me. He was moving slowly, and I wished he wouldn’t, wished he would stop looking at me. Panic began to claw its way out of my chest, and I tried to force it back. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block what was happening. When he knelt between my legs completely, I seized up with complete terror.

  “If you don’t relax, you will tear.”

  My eyes shot open, and a few tears slid out. He supported himself on one arm, hovering over me. Tall and strong. No. No. No. No.

  “Try to relax.” He was so clinical about it. His gaze followed the trail my tears left on my cheeks and throat. They didn’t affect him. I tried to loosen up, but it was completely impossible. My muscles were frozen with fear. He gave a small shake of his head, almost disapproving. “This isn’t working,” he said. “I will have to use a lot of force to get past your tensed up muscles and all the way into you.”

  I could taste the bitterness of bile in my throat as memories from long ago slithered through my mind.

And something in me just … broke. Something dark and scared and deeply buried. There was no way for me to hold it in.

  A bone-shattering sob ripped from my throat, and it hurt because of the memories that it brought up. I pressed my palms against my face hard then curled my hands to fists and pressed my knuckles against my closed eyes. Wanting the memories out of my head, I tried to claw them out like I’d clawed at my uncle many years ago, but just like in the past, there was no escaping.

  I couldn’t breathe. Could. Not. Breathe.

  And I wanted to die. I needed the hurt gone. I didn’t want to live through that horror again, and I didn’t want new nightmares.

  Strong hands curled around my wrists, pulling, and I resisted, struggling, but they were relentless and kept pulling until my hands came away from my face. My eyes snapped open, my vision blurry with tears. And through the fog, two intense gray eyes slowly came into focus, and then they were all I saw, all I could see, all that mattered.