Trey - Shandi Boyes Page 0,23
a bad one. I’m as hungry as hell, but I’ve never been given anything without a consequence attached to the action, so I must remain cautious.
I also don’t trust anyone. I’m a good enough person to forgive someone who does me wrong and admits it, but trust isn’t something that comes easy for me. I’ve been burned too much in the past to hand it around lightheartedly.
“Out!” When the half-dozen middle-aged women working in the super-size kitchen fail to jump to Trey’s snapped command, he hits them with another. “If I’m forced to repeat myself, it won’t just be your pay I’ll slice.”
When they scamper out of the room, I want to follow them. I would if I could. Trey is clutching my wrist too firmly for me to escape. Even being held captive as a sex slave hasn’t improved my knowledge of the opposite sex, but I’m confident his hold is as possessive as it is aggressive. It prickles the fine hairs on my arms as well as his underhanded glances do.
He doesn’t look at me how most men do. Very rarely do his eyes drop to any of the areas below my face. It is like he can see my secrets in my eyes, so he doesn’t need to assess the damage firsthand.
I’d be scared by that fact if I couldn’t see his just as easily. He’s dark and dangerous, but he wasn’t always this way.
Someone broke him too.
Is he damaged beyond repair like me? I honestly don’t know, but I can’t stick around to find out. I didn’t endure years of hell to forget my objectives now.
“Don’t even think about it,” Trey mutters under his breath when he veers us past a butcher block brimming with super sharp knives. I barely glanced at them for a second, however, his worry is very much warranted. It only took a nanosecond for me to conjure up numerous ways I could escape with one knife, much less half a dozen of them.
My stomach gurgles for an entirely new reason when Trey says, “I don’t want to hurt you, K…” He strays his eyes to mine. The gleam in them certifies my earlier assumption that his hold is as possessive as it is aggressive. “But I will if forced.”
Either trusting me in a way he shouldn’t or hoping I’ll force him to hurt me, he lifts me to sit on a part of a bench not covered with apple peels and cores. Although the knives used to peel the apples aren’t as large as the ones we walked past, they could still cause a lot of damage to the vein in Trey’s neck that hasn’t stopped thumping out its own tune for the past twenty minutes.
After dropping his eyes to the high rise of my nightgown for barely a second, Trey floats his eyes up to mine. They’re familiar, yet foreign. Both dangerous and welcoming. Beautiful and tormented.
Dead, yet still alive.
When his lips furl into a smirk, my heart matches the mariachi beat of the vein in his neck. He isn’t laughing at me. He is smirking about my brutal clutch of an apple corer. I would have preferred to protect myself with a sharp blade, but the apple corer was closer, so I worked with what I had.
Like a man not in fear for his life, Trey hits me with a frisky wink before he turns his back on me. As shock bolts through me, my mouth falls open. I could strike now and hightail it for the screen door on my right, but for the life of me, I can’t. It isn’t just my wish to take Ana with me that has me ignoring the many inane thoughts in my head. It’s him, the man who felt the crack of my fist, yet doesn’t display an ounce of fear about me brandishing a weapon.
I’d be impressed by his gall if it didn’t make me feel so pathetic.
“I’m assuming by the chunk of meat you popped into your mouth, you’re not a vegetarian.” Although he isn’t technically asking a question, when he spins around to face me with a bowl full of meat, potatoes, and vegetables, I nod. “Good, then you can eat this. Although I suggest you go easy, so your stomach doesn’t get upset.”
I accept the bowl he’s holding out for me, but I don’t touch the contents inside making my stomach grumble so fiercely, I’m afraid our gathering will soon be interrupted by spectators wondering where the