Page 174 of The Enslaved Duet

But he said nothing.

I gripped my hands over his wrists like shackles and forced him tighter to me so he could see the way my eyes glowed, how something inside me wanted to reach out and eat him up entirely. Devour his power and his essence until he was all mine.

“How can I forgive you for everything you’ve ever done if you won’t give me access to your heart? Or the very least your mind? I cannot begin to fathom your motivation over the past few years, and I’m so fucking tired of trying.Why are you here, Xan?”

He was quiet for so long, only the heavy drag of our combined breaths punctuating the gummy silence, that I worried he wouldn’t respond. And then what would I do? I’d come too far to give in to him again without his meeting me halfway.

I needed some tender, vulnerable piece of his soul or else all my fragile, sandcastle dreams of more with this man would crumble irrevocably into dust.

“Please,” I whispered fiercely. “Give me something.”

“I want to give you everything,” he bit out almost before I’d finished speaking, his voice thunder and his eyes flashing like lightning. “I’ve wanted to give you everything since nearly the moment I laid eyes on you so beautiful and brave. Do you know what it is like for a man used to power and spoils when he is helpless to keep and worship the one thing he wants most?”

I didn’t breathe. My heart, for one long, agonizing minute, didn’t beat.

I existed on the precipice of his words, staring into the dark future hoping a soft landing would meet me after the jump.

“If I had a heart, Cosima, I know I would love you with every facet of it,” he breathed with almost violent tenderness, his hands so painful in my hair and his eyes so wonderfully tender on my skin my heart didn’t stand a chance against the contrast. “But I was born without one, and I don’t know if something like that can grow in a man like me. If it could, I know it would for you.”

A sob bubbled up my throat and burst between us. Xan ground his forehead hard against mine, somehow knowing the pain and the savage passion in his gaze would keep me from dissolving.

“You are mine,topolina,” he vowed with the same solemnity he had spoken his vows at our wedding. “I know this because everyone is a slave to something, and I am enslaved by you.”

My mouth was over his before I’d made the conscious decision to kiss him. He tasted of heat, slightly metallic and rich like the warmth after swallowing certain spices. I wanted to luxuriate in that hot cavern, moan into it as he fucked his tongue over mine, but he pulled away with one last searing suck, and my mouth went suddenly cold, tingling from the loss.

He rubbed his thumb over my swollen bottom lip and then nipped it before smiling his rare smile that broke open every hard plane of his face and made it almost boyish.

“I’m back because I couldn’t stay away, even if it was the safer,sanerthing to do.”

“Safer?” I asked, shivering slightly as I thought of Noel watching me all these years, every memory tainted by the possibility of his eyes on them.

Metal shutters slammed shut behind his eyes, and suddenly, the lord and master was back. He pulled away slightly, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

“We’ve arrived, Lord Thornton,” the driver said over the intercom.

Alexander was out of the car before I could demand more answers. Even when he opened my door for me, his face countenanced no conversation, and he ushered me quickly into my building as if a threat lingered around every corner.

I wondered now if they actually did.

“Xan, what’s going on?” I asked, pushing back against the hand driving me at the base of my spine as we made our way to the elevator bank. “What did you do with Ashcroft? What do you know about Noel watching me? I swear I’m going to scream if you don’t stop being an enigmatic piece of shit.”

His eyes darkened as he tugged me into the elevator and hard into his body so that he could band both hands around my hips in a crushing embrace. “Speak to me like that again,topolina, and I will remind you right here in this elevator where any of your neighbors might see exactly what happens when you disrespect me.”

I shivered with lust even as my anger still coursed through me. “Then respect me enough to tell me the truth of everything that’s happened. I feel as if I don’t understand the events of my own life even as I’ve been living it.”

His stern expression didn’t soften, but his expressive eyes went burnished with pride and tenderness. “Always so brave, little mouse, standing up to creatures greater than you in the jungle. So brave and beautiful.” He dipped to press a soft, almost fluttering kiss to my lips and then pulled back so I could see his eyes as he said, “I wanted to tell you everything on the Jurassic Coast, but you ran away from me as you seem liable to do. If you show me your home and promise not to run again, I promise to tell you the truth.”

“The whole truth?” I pressed suspiciously.

His lips twitched microscopically to the side, a small tell giving away his amusement. “The whole and nothing but, my beauty.”

“Deal.” I took a determined step back out of his embrace and offered my hand to shake on it.

Another lip twitch, this one nearly a full grin. He clasped his big, worn hand in mine and stroked his thumb over the delicate skin of my wrist. When I stepped to his side, a careful distance between us so that I could center my thoughts, he didn’t try to breach it, and I appreciated his restraint more than I could say.

I felt strange knowing Alexander would see my home. It was my happy place, a collection of rooms that vividly catalogued all the multifaceted aspects of my soul. I’d bought into the building because it was a pre-war historic New York City landmark, and the palatial caramel marble lobby and scrolling woodwork reminded me of Pearl Hall. The apartment itself was rich with vibrant colours, the living room the colour of my favourite Italian wine, the bookcases delineating that primary space from the office behind it were thick black structures filled with books, relics from my childhood home in Naples and photos of my family since moving to New York. A handful of Giselle’s paintings were on the walls, and some of my favourite framed portraits from fashion spreads I’d done lined the hallway leading back to the kitchen. I had a clay pitcher of wine forever filled to the brim on my island, a tradition started years ago at Mama’s house, and an easel set up by the small French doors that Giselle used to craft her masterpieces. A half-finished painting was propped there of a woman bound Shibari-style by locks of her own hair.

It was a space as intimate as the inside of my heart, and it frankly alarmed me that Alexander and his scalpel sharp eyes would have access to it all.