Placing me in front of him, I waited for him to let me go.

He didn’t.

His dark gaze locked on mine, piercing and intense. I swallowed hard as his fingers tightened around my wrist. My pulse slowly climbed, the longer we stared at each other.

Whisper glanced between us, nudging my hip with his nose, breaking the spell between me and his master.

Lucien let me go with a cough.

My cheeks burned.

Nervousness made me blurt, “What are you doing?”

His lips tightened, hard and unamused. “Teaching you something.”

“Teaching me...” I studied him, trying to ignore how good he looked dressed all in black, how severe and deadly. My traitorous heart skipped a beat that had nothing to do with him dragging me back here.

My mind fled back to last night and the accusations Evelyn and Lydia had hurled.

“You expect us to believe he’s that generous to you for no reason?”

“What is it about you that he finds so tolerable?”

Their voices stuck in my head like a thorn...because they had a point.

Why was he so generous to me that he’d willingly bled himself? What made me so different, apart from being able to ease some of his pain?

“What are you thinking?” He leaned forward, his spine curving until our faces were close. His nostrils flared as if scenting all the things I wouldn’t reveal. “Tell me. Why have you gone...sad?”

“Sad?” I backed up, unable to handle his scalding intensity. “I’m not sad.”

“Are you angry that I haven’t let you leave?”

The way he said it...the way he swooped back to his tall height with a callous sneer—like he was guarding himself. His words were sharp, but his eyes were pained.

My heart crashed against my ribs in shock. Delusion. Definitely had to be delusion.

The way he exhaled sharply, straightened too quickly, his careful mask slamming back into place—it hurtled me back to the almost-kiss we’d shared in my room when he’d thrown me on the bed and used me as a strange sort of painkiller.

I’d felt things that night.

I still felt those things but...I’d thought they were one-sided.

However, the way he watched me—the way the air went thick and tingly the longer we stared.

I stopped breathing.

He...he couldn’t feel the same, could he?

The thought was utterly absurd, yet...there was something...

The longer we stood there, just the two of us—like it had been for over a month—I began to wonder.

And my stupid, stupid heart skipped a beat.

“Now you look afraid.” His hair dangled over his forehead as he tipped close again. “What the hell is the matter with you?” His temper appeared. “Tell me.”

I shouldn’t.

I really shouldn’t but...I had no control when he looked at me like that: wary and guarded but intensely curious—like a feral animal wanting to trust but still unable to.

“I...”

“Yes?” He cocked an eyebrow.

My stomach fluttered. Did he have to be so effortlessly gorgeous? So dangerous to my sanity?

Common sense flew far, far away.

“I need to ask you a question,” I blurted.

His arms crossed tight across his chest, biceps straining against his black shirt. “What question?”

God, why?

Why did I say that?

I wanted to take it all back. To tell him to forget it but...after so long on my own. After accepting that I might never have the strength to care for someone again after losing my parents so horrifically, I didn’t want fear to stop me.

I didn’t care that I was trapped in here with him.

I didn’t care all of this was like some nightmarish fairytale.

For now, we had no choice but to be caged together but...what if we no longer had to be enemies?

Forcing myself to meet his eyes, I brought up the one thing I wasn’t going to. “You gave me your blood yesterday.”

His eyes narrowed. “So?”

“You only permit me to stay by your side—”

“Your point?”

“We’ve spent over a month together—”

“You’re saying you’re bored of me already?”

“And now...now you want to teach me things.” I swallowed hard. “What things?”

Sexual things?

Images exploded in my mind of him adding to my daily duties. Of requesting I service him in other ways.

I blushed as red as a rose.

Not because of the highlight reel my thoughts became on how I could serve him, but because I wasn’t running away screaming like I should.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” I squeaked.

“Like you expect me to order you to your knees and blow me.”

I choked. “A-Are you?”

“Wait.” He went rigid. “Is that what you were thinking?”

I looked away, my cheeks about to catch fire. I wanted to deny it. To bluster and deflect but my mouth betrayed me. “You did say you wanted to teach me something...”

“And you thought it meant how to fuck me?” He laughed bitterly, crossing his arms even tighter.

“Yes. I mean...no.” Nervousness made me trip over truth. “I mean, if you were going to add onto my duties...I suppose I would need to be taught.”

God, what are you saying?!

He went fatally, deadly, lethally still. “You’re saying you’re a virgin?”

My head pounded and a wave of vertigo had me wobbling on the spot. “I have zero experience in the bedroom if that’s what you’re asking.” My vision went a little hazy as my mouth decided to get me killed. “Kind of like you, I suppose.”

“What?!”

Oh my God, shut up!

A rush of sickness made me break out in a sweat. “I mean...it makes sense why you haven’t. I get why you haven’t but...if you’ve changed your mind, then—”

“You’ll help relieve me of my celibacy?” he said so quietly, so coldly it crackled with frost.

He’s going to kill me.

Even Whisper pushed himself between us as if trying to defuse the electrical tension.

My eyesight went grey on the edges; I tripped to the couch. Sitting heavily on the arm, I pressed my face into my hands.

It would be better if he did kill me.

At least then I wouldn’t have to die of embarrassment.

I felt him coming.

Felt the prickle of his energy as it reached out, snatched mine, and twisted us together with stinging chemistry.

“So you’ve avoided me all day—deliberately stayed outside and away from my company—because you think I’m going to drag you into my bed?”

I dared look up.

His face was black as a storm cloud. “Well?”

I didn’t know how long I would be able to withstand his temper and not blackout, but I did my best to be as honest as I could. Honesty was the only thing I had. The only thing that would hopefully save me. “I’ve heard the others gossiping about you. I know they all want to get pregnant and use you. So it makes sense that you flatly refuse to touch them, even though I’m sure you’re lonely.”

“I’d be very, very careful if I were you,” he breathed, his hands balling by his thighs.

I stupidly didn’t heed that warning, panic making me far too chatty. “Then again, you’ve almost eradicated all those who were trying to hurt you and the ones left behind are.... Well, those are the girls who are willing to look after you in any way you want.”

He physically shuddered as if the thought of letting any of them near him sent his skin crawling.

I hated that his reaction made my heart flutter.

That his revulsion to other women only added to my ridiculous notion that...I was different.

God, Rook, will you stop being such an idiot!

“Go on,” he commanded, his chest straining with a harsh breath.

I wanted the floor to open up and eat me.

“Y-You have to admit, we’ve spent a lot of time together lately. You don’t leave when I’m cleaning, you’ve let me into your world, and trust me to keep your secrets—”