Page 55 of Toxic
“I just want to forget about all of it. I want to finish everything with Sal and start over, pretend none of it ever happened.” I wrap my arms so tightly around Gracin that my bicep screams in pain, but I don’t care. “But first, I think I need to sleep. I’m not drawing judgments about anything, but I’m exhausted. Can we go to bed?” I pause for a second. “Together? I just don’t want to sleep alone. Nottonight.”
After a short conversationwith one of his bodyguards instructing them to get rid of the body, Gracin takes me back up to my room. It says a lot that dead bodies no longer faze me. He leads me right to the shower. Neither of us speak. I’m not sure I can find the words to articulate what happened, so Idon’ttry.
I lean against the counter as Gracin turns the shower on and disrobes in front of me. He turns and helps me out of my clothes, but it doesn’t feel sexual. It seems like he almost cares about me, in his twisted way. I don’t try to muddle it out because there’s no use trying tounderstandhim.
He helps me into the shower and pulls me against his chest. I don’t fight it. I can’t. I’m not sure I’d be able to even if I had the presence of mind or the energy. As I relax against his chest, he carefully washes my hair, and lathers up my body before dropping to his knees to inspect the scars on my legs. The puckered flesh doesn’t have much sensation, but I shiver anyway when he presses his lips toeachone.
“No one will ever hurt you like this again.” He looks up from his crouched position with a devilish smile. “Exceptmaybeme.”
I shiver despite the hot spray. “You won’t hurt me,”Isay.
“No?” he asks as he gets back to his feet to rinsemyhair.
“No.”
“What makes yousaythat?”
“You could have hurt me when you found me in LA.” I yawn and snuggle closer against him as his hands rub up and down my back. “I wondered why you didn’t come after me when youfoundme.”
“I had things to take care of before I came for you. I needed a house and to settle-up with my employers. I didn’t think they’d find you so fast or I would have come and gotten yousooner.”
“And the video?” I ask sleepily. “How did yougetit?”
Once I’m clean, he shuts off the water and guides me out onto a towel. He follows closely behind and wraps me up in one to dry me off. As he’s helping me dress, he says, “When I got back to the house and you weren’t there, I took it to have something of yours. Something that reminded me of you. There wasn’t much, so I had to settle with that. I wasn’t sure if I was going to come for you, but I also couldn’t let it be the last time I eversawyou.”
“And A-Andrew?”
“Desmond and I had a talk. He informed me where I could find Sal and Danny as well as Andrew.” He tips my face up for a kiss. “There’s no way in hell I’d ever let a man do what they did to you and let them get awaywithit.”
“But why the video? Why have medoit?”
“So you know you’re capable of fighting back,”hesays.
“I think you proved that,” I saydryly.
He kisses me again, and then we fall into bed without another word and sleep until just before dawn. When I wake, I find him already dressed, brushing the hair back from my face. I know without even saying a word that having him is inescapable. With a murmured apology, I slide from underneath the covers and make quick work of the bathroom and brushing my teeth. I return to find him on his feet prowling aroundtheroom.
He hadn’t been back here since I first arrived, and he looks at it now, examining the things I’ve accumulated with blatant curiosity. The books I’ve taken from the library but never read, flowers from the garden, and a set of weights I liberated fromthegym.
“I always wondered what you were doing here when Iwasn’thome.”
I study him as he picks up a dried flower and twirls it by thestem. “Why?”
He looks back at me. “You fascinate me. Ever since that first day, you’ve been under my skin, and I can’t seem to be ridofyou.”
“Do you want to be?”Iask.
“No,” he says without hesitation, moving to stand right in front of me, his green eyes as stormy as a summer morning and just asvibrant.
“Tessa,” he says softly and then groans before taking my head in his hands to press a savage kiss onmylips.
He practically vibrates around me as my fingers wrap around his wrists. He’s barely restrained as his mouth works mine over. There’s nothing seductive or sweet about the moment. It’s an over-taking, a siege, and I surrender, allowing him to lay me back on the bed withasigh.
I don’t care that it’s wrong or that he’s a bad man or that he’s all the things I know I should run from. All I care about is he makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life. With him, I feel like I truly live, like I canbreathe.
I don’t know when I forgave him for what happened to me, for what he made me do, but I have. And now the hunger to have him, to take him, has returned with a viciousness thatconsumesme.
“Do you trust me?”heasks.