His(51)

I returned to the bedroom in a better mood. She lay staring at the ceiling and would not look at me when I came and sat beside her.

“I’m going out for the afternoon,” I said.

She whipped her head back towards me.

“You said—”

“I won’t kill him today. We made a trade.”

“A trade.” She whispered it.

“Not sure if it was worth it? Well, kitten, you can always change your mind.”

“No.”

“I’ll bring you back a present. No trades, just a gift.”

“Untie my hand, please,” she said. “One hand, that’s all I need. That’s all I—”

“Later,” I said. “But not when I’m gone. I can’t leave you untied. Surely you understand that.”

The rejection rippled through her body. I put my hand on her stomach and she winced.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Not if you’re going to leave me.”

I lifted my hand away from her.

“I’ll be back,” I said. “And… thank you.”

She looked up at me, confusion quirking her beautiful arched eyebrows.

“For giving me a measure of relief. It’s not enough, not for me, but you tried. I—thank you.”

I turned and left before she could respond.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kat

He came back later and threw a few books down next to me on the bed. Then untied my hands and feet. An hour earlier, I would have been ready to throw myself at him in a desperate attempt for either an orgasm or an escape, but I had calmed down a lot since then.

He had, too, it seemed. He smiled comfortingly at me.

It was his thank you that had really made me look at him differently. Strange that such a little thing could make me feel so much better. But I felt that I’d given something to him that he couldn’t take himself. In a way, he needed me.

That was good and bad at the same time. There was no way he would ever let me go, but maybe I could convince him slowly to give me more space. More freedom. And then—

Then what? I couldn’t risk trying to kill him again. I would take it slowly, I decided, rubbing my wrists. Try to gain his confidence back. Then I could decide on my next move.

I picked up one of the books. The Billionaire’s Courtesan. The cover was one of those pink and gold numbers with raised lettering. I always wondered why they didn’t do the bumpy lettering over the woman’s breasts. It would be a heaving bosom. Get it?

Yeah, I didn’t make myself laugh, either.

“I thought you might like these,” Gav said.

“Romance novels?” I tossed the book down and looked at the others. The Cowboy and the Bride. Her Last Virgin Night.

“There was one on your cart when we first met.”

“That’s… sweet of you.” I picked up the cowboy one and rifled through the pages. The second chapter started with him “exposing his throbbing member” and only got worse. I giggled, cupping my hand over my mouth. The word member seemed so funny at that moment that I had to suppress a burst of laughter.

“You don’t like them?”

“No, it’s just...We make fun of these.”

“We?”

“Jules and I. My friend, the one that was there. She called you Fabio afterward, because of how you looked.”

“Oh? How did I look? I don’t have that stunning long blond hair.”

I looked up at Gavriel as he sat down next to me. I didn’t know if it was because he’d untied me, or because I’d finally gotten him off, but I felt like we were having a normal conversation for the first time. It was weirder than any other conversation we’d had, strangely enough. Like we’d known each other for longer than we actually had.

“Come on. You know how you look.”

“Well-groomed?”

“Attractive. Much hotter than any guy that normally comes into the library, that’s for damn sure.”

He laughed. With the early afternoon light coming in through the window, the room felt cozy. Romantic. If I hadn’t known that I had just been bound up on the bed, thinking this man was going to kill me, I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

“I don’t think I could be on the cover of a romance novel.”

“I think you could.” I flopped down on my back and let my eyes skim over the pages without reading anything. “That could be your new career.”

“Stop killing people and start ravishing virgins?”

“Sure, why not?” We were flirting. This was so weird.

“I only picked up one virgin book, but there were dozens of them on the shelf. What is it about romance novels where the heroine has to be a virgin?”

“Easy. She has to be perfect,” I said. “Or at least perfectly innocent. The heroes too.”