I—”
“You know what? Never mind. I get it. Can I visit with Noah or is it really just deliver his plate and leave?”
“Five minutes.” He pulls on his jacket. “Do I need to put bars on the windows?”
“What?” But then I remember how I told him I’d rather throw myself out the window than have to fuck Marcus Rinaldi. “I don’t know, is Marcus Rinaldi here?”
He chuckles. “Don’t go snooping where you don’t belong. You can help Lenore in the kitchen if you get bored and you’ll stay indoors.”
“What about clothes?”
He gestures to the chair where a dress is folded over the back.
“Anything else?” he asks as he pulls his jacket on, making it hard to look away from him as muscle stretches the material.
I shake my head. What the hell is wrong with me?
He comes over to me and I tug the blankets higher. With a hand beneath my chin, he tilts my face upward. “Tonight, we’ll figure out if you’ll be useful to me.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’d better be useful.”
“You mean I’d better not pass out so you can feel better about taking something that I don’t give?” I don’t know why I say it because in my heart, I know he won’t do that. He would have already done it if he were that kind of man.
He snorts, eyes growing darker looking like a midnight sky. “Careful, Little Kitten.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? It fits. I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not Fury. You’re just a harmless Little Kitten.”
I tug my face out of his grasp, but he grips it again, this time tighter.
“Let go of me. Don’t ever touch me.” I close my hands around his forearm which feels like a steel bar.
“Did I touch you last night?”
“You’re hurting me.”
“Or did I take care of you when you needed to be taken care of?” When I don’t answer, he presses the back of my head against the headboard. At least it’s soft. “Answer me.”
“I don’t need you—”
“Answer me. Did I hurt you? Did I take what I wanted with no regard for you?”
I stare up at him and he stares down at me.
But then he cocks his head to the side. “Or are you not sure? Can’t you remember?”
“I thought I was wrong about you, Cristiano. I thought you were nice.”
He laughs at that. At me. And I hear how naïve I sound, how ridiculous and stupid.
“I’m not nice, Little Kitten. I’m nowhere near nice.” He studies me, softens his grip then runs his knuckles over the curve of my neck. He tickles my collarbone and I wonder if he can see how hard my heart is beating in my pulse. He lets his gaze fall to my mouth then back up. “Or are you disappointed that I didn’t do it? Were you hoping to get fucked? Wanting it?”
“Fuck you.” I try to move away but he captures my arm to stop me.
“I see how you look at me. Would it make you feel better about yourself if I took it?”
“That’s not…Shut up!”
“Then you could say it wasn’t your choice. That’s how it was with your brothers, right? The wedding? Not your choice? Your little hunger strike all you could actually do instead of standing up for yourself, instead of fighting. You say you’d have thrown yourself out the window rather than fuck Rinaldi but maybe that’s a lie.”
I dig my nails into his skin. “Let go!”
“I’ll let go when I’m ready to let go.”
“I hate you!”
“Is it a lie? Tell me.”
“Let me go!” I reach my hands to his face wanting to scratch him again, but he takes my wrists and flips me over onto my belly. He leans his weight over me, so I feel him at my back. Feel how much bigger he is than me. How much stronger.
“Don’t fucking do that ever again.”
“Let me go!”
“Tell me. Is it a lie?”
“Stop.” I squirm beneath him.
“Or is it that you just don’t hate him enough. And if that’s the case, if you don’t hate him enough, then you are my enemy, Scarlett De La Cruz.”
“I’m not weak. I did the only thing I could. You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened. What—” my voice breaks. I turn my face into the bed. I hate this. Hate that it all still makes me feel like this. That it has so much power over me still.
He draws back and suddenly I’m spun over onto my back. He studies me, watches my eyes, a