Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,69
when he’s putting himself down, he still finds a way to fit something cocky in there. “I’m not sure I believe that.”
He shrugs. “You would if I fucked you like I fucked the others.”
I must be a masochist. The thought of him being with someone else cuts through my stomach like a knife—but that’s not enough to stop me from wanting to twist it. “Why’s that?”
He chuckles again, and this time there’s a hint of amusement behind it. “Jealous, little girl?”
“Curious.”
“Oh, do not be obtuse. It’s quite sweet. I enjoy it,” he says with another laugh. “If you must know, I’ve never even taken my clothes off until tonight.”
It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help but smile at how he thinks that’ll make me feel better. “Whatever did I do to deserve you?” I say, sarcasm apparent in my tone.
He laughs and then stands up. “I’ll lie with you until you fall asleep,” he says. “You understand I cannot sleep next to you?”
He thinks I’ll take his mask off while he sleeps. He doesn’t trust me.
Still.
I’m about to get upset about that before I realize I don’t trust him, either. Not really.
So I simply reply, “Yes.”
He nods once and comes back to the bed, lying down on his back with his arms behind his head like a pillow. I scoot back down and lie on my side, facing him.
I try to close my eyes, but every time I do it’s like opening floodgates in my mind. My thoughts swirl with everything that has happened. I’m exhausted, and all I want to do is go to sleep, but my mind won’t stay quiet long enough to let it happen.
Shifting my position, I try to get comfortable. I was disappointed when he didn’t join me, but now that he’s here it is not making the difference I thought it would. He’s here physically, but mentally he could be a thousand miles away.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask him.
He pauses for a beat and then chuckles. “No one has ever asked me that question before.”
“Really?”
His head shifts as he glances down at me and then he returns to staring up at the dark roof of the bed. “Yes, really.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” I tell him.
“No, I didn’t,” he agrees. “There is not an easy answer to it. I’m thinking a thousand different things and nothing at the same time.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
He shrugs. “Neither do my thoughts.”
“They never make sense? Or only right now?”
He angles his body toward me slightly and traces his finger up my arm. It tickles, and I shiver at the sensation. “Sense is all in the perception, don’t you think?”
I blink a few times, trying to work out what he’s saying. “Are you… are you mad?”
The question hangs between us for some moments. There is a tug in the back of my mind, a worry that maybe I should have phrased it better, but somehow I don’t think he will care much.
He just laughs. “What an amusing question.”
“How so?”
“Because the answer matters little, and yet if you understood that you wouldn’t have asked the question,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“Well, are you or aren’t you?”
“Am I or aren’t I what?”
“Mad?”
He leans up on his arm, catching me by surprise and causing my heart to skip a beat. “Are you mad?”
“I… uh… I’m sane,” I reply.
His hand trails up my neck and across my jaw, stopping on my bottom lip. “Does a sane person fall for someone who is mad?”
I swallow.
Probably not. But you can be perfectly sane and still be tempted by someone, especially someone like Baron. It’s like how I explained it in the shower. There was nothing I could do to keep the walls up. He’s known all along what he was doing to me. That doesn’t mean that what I feel for him is real. “I might have fallen for you, but only because you engineered it that way. I don’t love you.”
He laughs. “You will never love me, sweet girl.” He leans down and presses his mask against my forehead before retreating again. “At best, you’ll likely have Stockholm syndrome, and I’m more than delighted with that. I told you that I didn’t want your love, only ever your fear.”
“Stockholm syndrome?”
“A mirage. An illusion of nature. A physiological response. A victim who falls for her abuser, but it is merely a coping mechanism. It’s not love, and you will never love me. But you, my little monster, will always fear me.”
His words should send chills down