Page 58 of Freed
His voice is quieter than I’ve heard it in a long time.
“Next time you dream like that,” he says, “don’t ask me for mercy unless you mean it.”
Heat slams through me so fast it steals my breath.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t soften the words. Just lets them sit there between us, low and dark and devastating. I stare at him, furious and flustered and far too aware of my own heartbeat. Then I grab the pillow he caught and throw it at him again. This time it hits him square in the face.
“Go to hell,” I say, and storm toward the bathroom before he can see how hard my hands are shaking.
When I come out of the bathroom, the air in the bedroom feels heavier than before.
Lorenzo is still sitting on the edge of the bed, bare-chested, one forearm braced on his thigh, his dark gaze lifting the second he hears the door open. He looks at me like he’s been listening for that handle to turn. Like he’s known exactly when I would come back into the room.
My pulse stumbles.
I’ve splashed cold water on my face. It hasn’t helped. My skin still feels too tight, my body too aware, my thoughts too tangled. Mortification still burns low in my stomach from waking up half on top of him, from what I apparently said in my sleep, from the heat he left behind with that last line before I fled.
Next time you dream like that, don’t ask me for mercy unless you mean it.
I hate that it’s still moving through me. I hate that part of me doesn’t hate it enough.
His gaze drifts over me slowly.
He says nothing at first. That silence is worse than words.
I cross my arms over myself. “Don’t.”
His mouth barely shifts. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“And how exactly am I looking at you?”
I should not answer. I know I should not answer. But my nerves are frayed raw, and he has always had a talent for dragging the truth out of me by making it impossible to hold onto anything else.
“Like you know something I don’t.”
A pause.
Then, low and rough, “I know exactly how frustrated you are.”
The words stop me cold.
Lorenzo rises from the bed in one fluid movement, and the room seems to tighten around him. He doesn’t come too close. Not yet. He just stands there watching me with that dangerous, unreadable calm that always makes me feel like the ground beneath me is shifting.
“I can see it,” he says quietly. “In the way you’re holding yourself. In the way you keep trying to outrun what your body is doing.”
My throat goes dry. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“No.” His gaze fixes on mine. “I’m very sure of you.”
I laugh once, but it comes out thin. “You don’t know what I need.”
Something dark flickers in his face. “No?”
He takes a step toward me. Then another. By the time he stops, I can feel the heat of him. The steady force of his presence. The danger of being this close to him when I’m already unraveling.
“I think,” he says, voice dropping to something velvet-dark, “that you’ve had too much fear, too much pain, too much anger for one woman to carry alone.” His eyes search mine. “And I think you want one thing tonight that doesn’t hurt.”
