Page 120 of A Taste like Sin

“Don’t,” I croak as he cinches my forearm in a single fist. “Let go of me. Don’t touch me!”

“¡Detener!I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

I’ve never heard his tone so deep. Iron.

“You’re in shock,” he adds a fraction softer. The fingers of his opposite hand find the inside of my

wrist, pressing along the tendon. “Your pulse is weak. You feel so damn cold—”

“Like you care.” I want to shrug him off, but I’m too tired. I lean back against the cushions of the

couch, my eyelids fluttering. “You’re a liar. So is Julio—”

“He cares for you more than you realize,” Damien growls, sounding gruffer once more. His grip

tightens and I hiss, feeling the faintest tendrils of pain. “I had to beg him to tell me where you were.

Me.Beg.” He scoffs at the absurdity, and through my blurred vision, I see his mouth twist into a

frown. “I was worried about you.”

“Leave me alone.” My eyes drift shut again, blocking out his face. But not the pain. It’s centered in my

chest rather than my arm, however. Pulsing. Pinching. Burning. “I’ll call the police—”

“You’re too weak to move,” Damien snarls. He pulls me in closer as if to prove it.

I can’t fight him off. His heat is a vise, encasing me from all sides, squeezing out the numbing chill.

This close to him, I feel everything. His hammering heartbeat radiating through his chest. His rapid

breaths betraying how quickly he raced to me. His fear, pungent in the scent of his sweat.

My thoughts splinter, becoming too sharp. Too much.

“Let me go—”

“I never beg,” he says into my ear, returning to that confession. “Never. I never pace my fucking suite

in a frenzy.¡Maldito sea!I’ve never torn through the city like a madman looking for a woman who

hides from me. I’ve never threatened to kill Julio with my bare fucking hands if he didn’t reveal

where she was. I wouldn’t harm him,” he says, almost as if to reassure himself of that fact. “But I still

said it. Maybe in that moment, both of us believed it.” His grip tightens even as he maintains the

pressure on my injured arm. His breath scalds the side of my throat, his voice a low, insistent hum I

can’t ignore even if I wanted to. “I threatened him,dulce niña. All I could think about was you in this

storm. A part of me hoped I’d find you standing here with a knife, ready to ward me off with violence.

Unaffected. I would have left if I found you so.”

Not panicked. And terrified. And weak.

“But you are only human,” he tells me, his voice hoarse. “Human, and strong, and few could survive