His hand moved up from the bed and slid over my thigh, touching me where I was already slick with lust. Flames shot from my core through my limbs.
“No!” I shouted, and he removed his hand so quickly that I was left with only the memory of the pressure. I bit back a sob. God, how I wanted him!
“Have it your way, kitten,” he said. He smiled at me. He knew he’d caught me already, that in my mind I was playing out the scene as I wanted so desperately for it to happen. The towel falling to the ground, his naked body hard against mine, his cock erect and pulsing between my thighs, filling the part of me that was empty, God, oh-so-empty and willing, if only my mind would play along.
He turned off the light, and we were thrown into a dark broken only by the moonlight coming through the window. My eyes adjusted to the dim blue light as I watched him pull on a white shirt, dark briefs. His muscled backside gleamed, curving, and then was covered with fabric. He turned abruptly and I looked away, not fast enough.
Kindly, he didn’t mention my watching him. Kind? Was he kind? Maybe.
One by one, he loosened the ropes at the bedposts, giving me just enough slack to be able to move my limbs, not enough to bring my hands down to my mouth, or anything else that would let me undo the knots.
“Don’t move too much,” he said quietly. “The ropes tighten when you pull on them.”
The blanket he’d knocked to the side of the bed was light, and he tucked in the top of the blanket under my chin. He was only a shadow above me, blocking out the moonlight from the window, when he caressed my cheek with one hand. Then he kissed my forehead and slipped under the cover next to me, lying on his back, just out of reach.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gav
My kitten lay beside me in the darkness, trying not to move. And in the darkness my heart beat underneath the bandage, pumping blood to the place where she’d cut me. In the darkness, too, my shadow waited. It was there even when I could not see it, darker still when I turned off the light. I could not hide from myself in the nighttime.
Peter Pan cried when his shadow left him. It was up to Wendy to sew it back on, to make sure that his shadow would never leave him again.
If I could leave my shadow somewhere and never see it again, I would.
My shadow. It’s a darkness that creeps in, shutting out anything bright or good until all I can see is the one thing that will satisfy it and drive it away. It begins to take me over, and then all I see is evil. When I kill, it retreats.
I’m not crazy. I’m not schizophrenic. This isn’t a second self or something ridiculous like that. I’m not abdicating responsibility. My crimes are my own, and I wield the knife. My stomach growls for food, but I’m the one eating. My heart aches for relief, but I’m the one murdering.
No, the shadow is something I wear like a cloak, and like a cloak it grows heavier with each step until it’s unbearable. That’s when I kill. I kill. Me. Not the shadow. Still, if it were gone, I wouldn’t need the release that killing gives me.
Wendy was able to sew Peter’s shadow back on using only a needle and thread. Is it so impossible to think that she could cut it away from me with a razor?
Kat
When I woke up, it was dim in the room. The sky outside of the bedroom window was gray, the curtains glowing white at the edges. I longed to look outside, to see the trees now in the half-darkness. Half-turned on my side, I tugged slightly at the rope before realizing that I was still captive. The knot was still tight around my wrist.
Next to me, Gavriel kicked out. He’d fallen asleep on his back, leaving me to stare at the ceiling for hours before I finally was able to drift off into restless sleep. Now he was the restless one. He kicked again and moaned, the blanket yanked down around his waist, his body twisted.
Sweat soaked the front of his shirt, a half-circle of transparent wet fabric clinging to his sculpted chest. His brows were clenched together tightly on his forehead, an expression so painful it hurt me to watch him writhe. Both sides of his mouth turned down in a grimace. The corners of his eyes leaked tears that mixed with the sweat trickling down his temples.
Killer. Kidnapper. Torturer. But as he tossed beside me, moaning again in his sleep, he looked like a child scared of the dark.
He turned over again, a whimper escaping his lips. He murmured half-words I could not understand. Then one I could, a whisper so sorrowful it nearly broke my heart.
“Kitten,” he whispered, and moaned again.
My arm was tied tight, but I could reach with my fingers as he moved his head. I touched the top of his hair, my fingertips stretching to caress him.