His eyebrows rose, as if I was missing something crucial. “And that needs to change.”
He looked away when the doorbell could be heard throughout the house and glanced to his watch again. “They’ll come in here. Don’t bother asking them to help you leave. You aren’t the first girl they’ve visited.”
I hated him.
The women who had come to dye my hair hadn’t said a word to me the entire time they were there. They had tilted my head down and up as needed and had disrobed me and shoved me into the shower to wash the dye out, but they hadn’t spoken. When I had exited the shower, they’d handed me a plush robe to dry off in and forced me into a chair as they began the process of drying my hair, but again, no words.
When they were done, they once again stripped me from their robe, dragged me in front of the mirror, and waited.
“It looks beautiful,” I said honestly.
Gone was the blonde and in its place was a warm brown. It transformed my face even . . . but the sight made my chest ache. The naked brunette in the mirror was not me. Briar Chapman was disappearing.
Both women had kissed my forehead before leaving, and I had turned around to grab one of my robes from the small closet in the bathroom.
Only the third robe was gone, as were all of my towels.
My brow furrowed as I walked out of the bathroom to my room, wondering if I had left the robes in there, and I stopped abruptly when my feet hit the carpet.
I hadn’t had to look around the room to see if the robes were there or not. The stripped-bare bed told me all I needed to know.
I hated the man in that house.
After searching every corner of the room and bathroom for anything I could have used to cover myself and coming up empty, I had curled into a ball between the bed and wall, and hadn’t moved since.
My legs had cramped up, but I knew the second I moved would be when the bedroom door opened, so I continued to sit through the pain as I waited.
And waited.
Dinner must have come and gone, judging from the way my stomach painfully growled before eventually stopping, and after nearly falling over too many times from drifting off to sleep, I finally stretched my legs out on the floor and rested my head against the wall. But he never came, and my eyes grew heavier and heavier until I couldn’t keep them open any longer.
I woke later to the feel of him lifting me off the floor.
I gasped and instinctively pushed against his chest, trying to get away from him when he began lowering me to the bed.
It didn’t matter that he’d done the same thing just that afternoon. That afternoon I’d been covered. That afternoon I could at least still hope for the kinder side of the devil as he tried to push me to progress. But he’d sent a blaring message by taking everything from me: Our “gentle” progress days were done.
“No, no!” I said desperately just before my back unexpectedly hit cool sheets.
“Stop,” he commanded gently. Grasping my wrists in his hands, he forced my hands to the bed with little effort, and captured my gaze with his.
“P-please, no.” My body trembled, and though I tried to close my legs, his still-clothed body kept them open.
“Stop moving, or the bedding is going to be taken away again, and your days in here will continue.”
I immediately stopped fighting him, but the trembling continued. I clenched my teeth together in a useless attempt to stop my shaking jaw, but it only made my body shake harder.
“Show me you can handle this.” It was a plea and a demand, every word coated with desire.
Despite everything—my hate, my revulsion, my fear—the sound sent a shiver down my spine. A rush of air blew past my lips at the pleasant feeling, and I looked up to find his dark, sinful eyes locked on mine.
“Show me, Blackbird.”
I hated him for taking away my choice. I hated his voice and those eyes. I hated that somehow, these days with him had caused me to not only want to succeed in this for me—but for him too.
I owed him nothing, and still . . .
No! He is darkness. He is the devil, I reminded myself as my breasts brushed against his broad chest. I want nothing from him, and I owe him nothing. I hate him . . .
“I can’t do—”
“Briar,” he whispered, his voice strained—the sound reminded me of his tortured expression earlier that afternoon. But other than letting his eyes shut then, his face remained blank. “I need you to do this. You need to do this. Don’t make me force you,” he pled so quietly that if he hadn’t been pressed to me, I wouldn’t have heard him. Then he dipped his head so close that he was my air, and I was his, and his dark eyes met mine again as he begged, “Show me.”
My breath caught in my throat at the haunted look that filled his eyes before he was able to force it away, and my fingers automatically curled around his hands.
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat, and after the briefest hesitation, I moved my head . . .
At first, shaking it subtly as some part of me tried to maintain that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—do this, before I quickly nodded.
I can do this.
“Briar.”
I owe him nothing.
“Don’t make me force you.”
To gain his trust and get out of here, I can do this.
“Show me.”
He held my stare for a few more seconds before releasing my hands and sitting back, and then his eyes dipped over my body in a way that felt violating and thrilling all at once. As his gaze moved leisurely back up, my breaths became rougher, harsher, but for once, it wasn’t out of fear or disgust . . .
And from the shift in the devil’s expression when he studied my eyes and took in my parted lips, he knew it too.
One of his large hands moved toward my face but paused in the air for a few seconds, as if he was debating whether or not he should do what he was about to. His dark brows drew together, and just when I thought he was going to drop his hand, he reached forward to curve it around my cheek, cradling my face gently.
My chest heaved with a trembling breath at the tenderness of his touch mixed with that same haunted look from earlier. And as I had before, I automatically reached down to grip his hand in one of mine.
Keeping my fingers locked in his, he slowly moved my hand back to where my other still rested on the bed above my head, and dipped his head until his lips were at my jaw.
My shiver was instant and not unwelcomed.
Heat moved through me, slow and intoxicating as his mouth moved down my throat in a series of sensual kisses.
Stop this. Stop him, I screamed at myself, but was only able to bite down on my bottom lip to stop a whimper from escaping me.
After releasing my hand, he placed one last kiss at the base of my neck before sitting back up, his dark eyes a mixture of need and indecision—and the need was winning . . .
In both of us.