I wanted him on my side.
I wanted him to care for me, so I could use him to exterminate his family like vermin.
“Are you sure?” he murmured. “Are you sure you want to throw away whatever’s building between us?”
I flinched, bracing myself to deny it. There’s nothing building between us.
You always were a hopeless liar, Nila.
How could I admit to an emerging connection between hunter and prey?
Jethro caressed my hair again. “I know what you’re thinking—I know you feel it, too.” He dropped his voice, whispering, “Don’t lie, Ms. Weaver. Not when we both know the truth. Do you deny we’re drawn to each other? Fighting more with ourselves than what we know we shouldn’t feel?”
Silence.
I had no reply. Nothing that wouldn’t give me away.
Jethro continued to rinse and dab, slowly but tenderly cleaning my smarting back.
“You’re strong. Stronger than anyone I’ve met. But still so na?ve, which makes you incredibly dangerous.” His touch pulled me deeper into his icy charm.
“What are you trying to do?” I pinched my lips together as a particular sharp lance of pain caught me by surprise. “Why are you saying all of this?”
A minute ticked past.
For the longest moment, I worried he would never reply, just like so many of my questions.
“I don’t know.” His answer ached with confession, cleaving open my chest.
Memories of what happened at the end of the debt repayment took my mind prisoner. “How could you do that? How could you come after hurting me so much?” I pressed my cheek harder against the bed as agony bonfired down my spine. “To get off on drawing blood makes you sadistic. It makes you twisted.”
Jethro paused, letting me go completely to swirl the cloth in the bowl. The brown liquid turned rusty from my blood. “Sadistic?”
I swallowed back a groan as I arched my neck, making eye contact with his turbulent golden gaze. “Yes. You enjoyed seeing me hurt from running in the woods. You like seeing me uncomfortable. Sadistic fits you perfectly.”
He sighed, looking at the dripping cloth in his hands. It stained his trousers, not that he seemed to care. “I’m many things but not a sadist.”
I scoffed, tearing my gaze away.
He didn’t deserve a reply when he blatantly lied.
Silence fell between us as he slowly continued to wash my back.
His hands dropped lower—to where he’d branded me with his orgasm.
I flinched. He sucked in a harsh breath as he reached the base of my spine. The residue stickiness felt foreign and unwanted. I wanted his pleasure gone. I didn’t want to wear evidence of his toxic mind games.
I whispered, “See the evidence? You came in seconds. You were so caught up in needing a release, you couldn’t even wait to subdue me to rape me.” I sighed. “Who needs to come so badly they’ll throw their dignity away and come like a little boy caught looking at Playboy for the first time?”
The memory of walking in on Vaughn doing exactly that was seared into my brain. I’d been scarred for life after that. Terrified of what it meant. Unable to understand what my brother was doing hurting himself in such a manner.
I’d bolted the moment I’d seen, and to this day, we’d never discussed it.
“You’re right,” Jethro whispered. “I disgraced myself. But I had no alternative. I couldn’t do what I wanted without hurting you more, and you’d already been hurt enough. It was the only way to see straight—to let the poison out of my system.”
“Poison?”
He chuckled sadly. “It’s one word for it.”
His touch landed on my spine again, wiping away the leftovers of his transgression. “If you want an apology, I won’t give it.”
“So I’m to accept you smearing your cum into my flayed back?”
I’m to accept that I belong to you, because I have no other choice?
He didn’t reply. Tossing the rag into the bowl, he grabbed a tube of cream beside it. Silently, he smeared the lotion onto my cuts.
I hissed as the cream stung before fading to a gentle throb. Every hair on my body bristled with how tenderly he cared for me. My heart raced for an entirely different reason as he meticulously smeared my entire back in balm.
The moment I was covered, he stood.
“Sit up,” he ordered.
Sit up? That was asking for the impossible. I couldn’t.
When I tried half-heartedly and swallowed a moan of agony, Jethro moved closer. “Let me help.”
He hovered, his scent of woods and leather scrambling my heart until I suffered a bad case of arrhythmia.
He didn’t touch me, only waited.
He’s waiting for your permission—transferring power back to you.
I frowned. What tricks was he playing? Who was this silent attentive man, and what the hell happened to the bastard I wanted to murder?
Jethro continued to watch me, his face tight and unreadable.
I nodded once.
With powerful hands, he helped me sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
Squeezing my eyes, I almost succumbed to pain-induced vertigo as I swayed in his grip.
“Trust me,” he murmured, reaching beneath my arms to scoop my weight, helping me stand.
I moaned as a few of the shallower cuts reopened, oozing painfully.
“Can you stand on your own?”
I wanted to berate him. Ridicule his kindness with what he’d done. But something in his eyes implored me to relax—to not fight him on this particular subject.
I blinked, completely lost as to his motives or plans.
Slowly, I nodded.
Leaving me to wobble in place, he pulled free a large bandage from a first-aid kit on the floor.
Between my teeth, I muttered, “You always intended to patch me up…afterwards?”
His eyebrow rose, locking me in his stare. “You still don’t understand.”