Page 59 of Ravaged

He nuzzled my cheek. “Is there a chance it’s a clue to the Pink Diamond?”

Those words prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. We were back to talking about the truth between us. We couldn’t pretend to be locked in pleasure’s paradise forever.

“Honestly, if you think about it,” I paused, trying to find the right words, “My dad isn’t the most trustworthy. He’s stolen stuff before, but I don’t know how he would’ve gotten in the same room as something that valuable.”

“It’s a strange world.” After those words, his voice changed, his entire demeanor shifting.Again. Where did I stand with this man? “You didn’t answer the question.”

“What question?”

“Is the necklace a clue?”

“I don’t know.”

“If there’s no diamond, then…” He looked away, then turned towards the wall.

If there was no diamond, then I was as good as dead. Dad too. I hated knowing that. The end might have been inevitable, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Could you hold me?” I asked. “Please, Ethan. I hate being like this.”

After a few seconds, he obliged, but his hands were stiff and limp at the same time. He was physically holding me, but his heart wasn’t in it. It was almost worse than if he had faced the wall the entire night. My throat tightened.

I should have been grateful that he had given me a few glorious moments of forgetting that I was his prisoner, letting me pretend that I was tied to his bed purely for fun.

But anger swelled within me. If I had accepted my fate, then why couldn’t he? Why couldn’t he hold me like he meant it, like I meant something more to him than a stuffed animal he had outgrown? Why couldn’t we have this moment? Why wasn’t what we had good enough for now?