My skin breaks out into goose flesh. Somehow I find enough courage to look up at him. He stares back at me, unblinking, dark eyes burning with intensity. “Am I going to ask you what?” I reply.
“What you’ve always wanted to ask me,” he says, a small smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are still serious, though. Focused and fixed on mine. “The question you’ve been thinking about since the day we met in that hotel room. You don’t care about how much blood I have on my hands.” I open my mouth—I sure as hell want to disagree with that—but he cuts me off. “You don’t care about prison, or Charlie, or Lacey. You don’t care about where I get my money, or how many women I fucked before you. You might tell yourself you do. It might even bother you a little bit, but none of that burns at you like this one question.” He sits forward, growling at the back of his throat as he moves. I don’t tell him to keep still anymore. I’m too mad at him for seeing inside me so easily. It makes me feel simple, like an open book that anyone can just come along and read any time they like.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I think I do, though, and that’s the worrying part.
He tips his head to one side, expression flat. A little angry. “Sloane.”
“Zeth. I’m sorry if—”
He lunges forward, grabbing hold of my face with both of his hands, pulling me to him. For an insane heartbeat I think it’s going to happen. Goddamn if I am not the stupidest woman on the face of this planet. I thought he was going to kiss me. It feels like my heart is burning in my chest when he doesn’t. He stops just an inch shy of my lips. “Ask me, Sloane. Fucking ask me.”
I’m about to tear my way free from his hold, but as soon as I touch his wrists I change my mind. I place my hands over his instead, holding them to my cheeks so that I no longer feel trapped, but rather safe. It’s the look in his eyes that’s done it. Flipped everything around on me and left me reeling. He looks…with that look in his eyes, it’s almost as if he’s begging me to do it. So I do.
“Okay, fine. Why? Why are you the way that you are?” A light goes on behind Zeth’s eyes. He blows out the breath he’s been holding, his eyelids fluttering. It’s like a tension inside of him has been cut or extinguished somehow. I know instantly that I’ve asked the right question. “Why do you have that black duffel bag? What happened to you? Who made you the way that you are?” I pause. Take a deep breath. “Who hurt you?”
The pressure of his hands increases as he tightens his hold on my face. He leans in even farther, so that our lips are a hair’s breadth apart. The close proximity is torturous; I’m trembling by the time he speaks. Even the movement of his lips faintly brushing mine as he talks is enough to make my heart slam against my ribcage.
“There we go, angry girl. The million-dollar question. Are you ready for the answer?”
I don’t know if I am or not, but the time has come. I nod my head just once, dizzy from the sensation of his breath skating over my mouth.
“Nobody hurt me, Sloane. No one made me who I am. I wasn’t molested or abused, or made to perform disturbing sexual acts. You have to know that there isn’t always a sinister shadow standing over the shoulder of someone like me. We’re a rare and dark breed. I carry that bag because I like it. I cut myself while I’m fucking sometimes because I like it. I play with a knife occasionally because I like it. I do all of the things that I do to you because I like it. And you know what, angry girl? The thing that disturbs you the most…”
My breath catches in my throat. I can hardly fucking breathe. Zeth’s tongue carefully flicks out, teasing my upper lip just once. I close my eyes as his words hit home, words that are whispered yet more powerful than a shout.
“…is that you like it, too. You’re just like me, Sloane. You’re just like me.”
Ever since I met Zeth Mayfair, my sleep patterns have been screwed. I’m slowly becoming used to the fact that I have enough problems to keep me awake at night these days, but right now not sleeping sucks. It’s three a.m.—I have to work in three hours, and I could really use the rest, but I’ve already been lying here for what feels like forever and I know there’s no way I’m going back to sleep.