What did that say about me that I’d spent a week hating him, yet now I was...disappointed.
Disappointed that he’d chosen the less likely path and favored abstinence instead.
“If we...” He swallowed again, running a hand over his face. Groaning once, he shook his head as if he couldn’t quite extract himself from the spell we’d cast together. Bracing his shoulders, he let his voice slip back into facts, cracking on lust. “If we get to exceedingly low temperatures—as it did a few years ago—we’ll need water stored instead of relying on the pipes. They freeze over, you see.”
A breath I didn’t even know I was holding exploded from my mouth. I wanted to puddle to the floor. To rock on my knees in relief that I’d avoided being ravaged by a man I was horrendously confused by and shamefully regretting that he hadn’t.
He wasn’t going to touch me.
Wasn’t going to force me.
My mind hissed with ridicule at myself and skepticism at him. Was this another game? Some sick way of making me run the gauntlet of emotions? Hatred, desire, relief, regret, finally to relax in his company from sheer exhaustion only for him to pounce on me when I did?
Would I have the energy to fight him off?
Would I even want to?
And why the hell was I dangerously angry but also disgustingly disappointed that the tension between us hadn’t detonated into all out sexual war?
It was this house, this valley, this man.
I’m losing it.
The knife slipped in my palm, my skin turning slippery with mistrust and misery.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
My rage exploded, causing me to grip the handle harder. “Am I okay? What sort of question is that? As if you care.”
He stilled, familiar temper swirling behind dark eyes. “I care.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay, then, I’m fine. Completely and utterly over the moon that I’m chained to a man who has no intention of letting me go. A man who makes it perfectly clear he can take me whenever he damn well wants.”
“I won’t touch you. Not today.” He caught my livid stare. “I told you, there are more important things.” A twisted chuckle spilled through his lips as he glanced down at his straining erection, trapped inside his jeans. “I won’t lie and say I can barely focus with the pain of needing you, but my head also fucking hurts, and I’m doing my best to do the right thing.”
“Why?”
He spread his hands as if even he didn’t fully understand. “If we focus on survival now, it means I get to keep you for far longer.” He stood taller and sniffed. “If I give in to what I want, then we both die. Miserably and sooner than I’d like.”
“The longer you keep me alive, the greater the chance you’ll die when I take you up on your offer of freedom.”
His stare went vacant for a second, zoning out to a blackness I couldn’t see. Then he shook his head and shrugged. “The longer I keep you alive, the greater the chance I have of being happy...even if it’s for a short while.”
My mouth fell open.
I wanted to scream.
Was this his new method of torture?
His honesty dug claws into my stupid heart.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?” His face was urgent and intelligent. “I’m telling the truth that firewood is almost as vital as food.” No signs of deceit or danger in his voice as he inched closer. “Drinking snow works, but I’d rather not have to carry bowlfuls through Fables if I can help it. I don’t know how long it’ll be until I’m back at full strength. Plus, there are a few odds and ends to do with getting the house weathertight. Then, of course, I have the important task of figuring out what to do with our food shortage.”
He genuinely needed me to understand how his existence worked because it was my existence now too.
“I need your help, but I’m also going to teach you. You need to understand the consequences of your actions out here. You need to respect—”
“Respect you?” I stiffened, feeling judged for being naïve and using his supplies. I hadn’t deliberately sabotaged his rations, yet he hadn’t been able to forgive me.
“Respect that no one will save you if you fuck up,” he muttered. “You’re on your own.”
That final sentence reeked of his loneliness of the past decade. He’d learned that lesson firsthand. My heart lurched then shut down. My stomach fluttered with pitiful butterflies, then shot them with harsh common sense.
Stepping back, I struggled to keep my anger. I fought to remain remote and furious, but I wasn’t lying about the exhaustion. Keeping that level of hatred required an eternal fire of fury, and somehow, Kas kept pouring damn water on it.
Seeing him like this? Animated about mundane things, forecasting and planning, it all revealed a part of him that was free from all the awfulness he’d lived through. When he talked about agriculture and seasons, he wasn’t the boy who’d been raped and molested. He wasn’t the man who couldn’t face those memories.
He was normal.
He was calm and free from the demons that haunted him.
I sighed, my eyes dropping to my ankle and the leather trapping me. My back snapped straight, a constant seesaw of what he’d done and who he was, the light and the dark, the right and the wrong.
I can’t keep doing this...
“Wait here,” he suddenly muttered, marching from the games room with a slight sway.
Where on earth—
The chain pinged and slithered behind him, dragged by the matching leather beneath his T-shirt.
Naturally, I did the opposite and followed, chasing the chain, slowing as he ducked to his haunches and fumbled with the pile of links pooled in the middle of the foyer.
What is he doing...?
My heart dared skip a beat. Maybe he was exhausted too. Maybe keeping me prisoner was eating him alive, and he’d decided to free me, after all.
The ironic thing was, in that one action, he’d gain my help. My willing help. I would do whatever he asked to ensure he’d survive alone before scurrying up that cliff and going home. He would redeem himself. He could prove I wasn’t crazy with my bewildered, broken heart.
The softest sound of metal on metal echoed in the grand marble-veined foyer before he stood and tucked something into his pocket. As he came back toward me, his balance was ever so slightly off when he once again ducked to my ankle and undid the chain from the leather cuff.
Oh, my God!
He did it.
He released—
With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the chain back into place. This time, the links were far shorter than the long leash that’d given us both freedom within the massive mansion. This time, only a few feet existed between us. A tether that gave no privacy, no protection.
My fury swirled around me, heating my skin and making tears prickle behind my eyes.
I couldn’t speak to him.
I couldn’t even look at him.
So when his finger once again tipped my chin up, directing my eyes to his, I wanted to strangle him like he’d strangled me. I needed him to know just how much this hurt me. How much he punched my soul, over and over again.
“I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go. All I can offer is my word that whatever I do to you from now on will only bring pleasure. When I take you, you’ll enjoy it. When I ask you to do something, you’ll learn from it. You’ll see life isn’t so bad here...with me.”