Page 43 of Roped

My mouth parts with a breath, but no other sound comes out. I’m completely speechless.

For once, he doesn’t stop his words, though; he keeps going: “On her soft, soft skin.” At this, he brings his thumb down to my cheek and rubs it in slow circles. “They scared her, could see it in her eyes. They’re blue like the sky without clouds and they’re always shinin’. There’s a light in them that I ain’t never seen before. It’s bright and loud, just like her. And she don’t scare easy. In fact, sometimes I think she should. For her own sake, but”—he clenches his jaw and his thumb presses into my cheek—“that night she was so fuckin’ scared. So I had to do it, yeah? I had to kill them for scarin’ her. For dimmin’ her light.”

I remember that night like it happened only yesterday. I remember feeling scared. Feeling terrified. More than I’d ever been. Not because I’d never seen that look on men before but because I had. Too many times to count. And that night, there were three of them and something told me, something deep in my gut, that that was it. That night something terrible would’ve happened to me, and there was no way I could’ve stopped it. If not for him.

So he’s right. I was scared.

My breaths are haphazard, choppy, both too little and too many. “You… k-killed them?”

His nostrils flare with his breath and his hold on me gets even tighter, possessive somehow. I don’t know how I know it’s a possessive hold, but I do. I’ve never been held like this. Both domineeringly, with his fingers splayed wide on the back of my head; and tenderly, as he cradles it and maneuvers my face even closer. As if my body is an object. His object.

Then, his breath misting over my face, he rumbles, “They scared you.”

I blink again, my nails almost lodged in the tree trunk. “You scare me.”

His chest expands with a large breath. “Not like that.”

“No,” I instantly answer because he’s right about that too. He scares me but not like that. He scares me in a way that thrills me, in a way that I like. It makes no sense, but it’s the truth.

“But I…” I go on, shaking my head, “I thought you left. That night. So how…”

“Didn’t leave,” he tells me. “I followed you home. Saw you get in, go to your room. You stopped by your friend’s room for a bit. I thought you’d tell her, let her be there for you. But you…” His jaw pulses, as if in annoyance. “You just laughed with her like nothin’ happened, like it was just a normal night.” Another pulse in his jaw before he continues, “Then, I doubled back to the alley. Loaded those motherfuckers in the back of my truck. Drove them out to the mountains; not here, though, someplace else. Left them for the coyotes to find.”

“You fed them to the…”

“Thought about bringin’ them to my wolves, but”—he shakes his head—“my boys deserve better.”

My mind is reeling. I have so many things to say, so many things I want to focus on. When I left my room tonight, I never could’ve imagined being here. Never could’ve imagined stumbling upon so many secrets, discovering so many truths. There’s no denying, though, they’re more precious to me than any leverage against the Graysons. But there’s still one more truth, one more secret I need to know, and I’m not taking no for an answer.

So I keep looking into his eyes as I state, “You killed for me.”

He keeps looking back.

“For the Turner Princess.”

His mouth tightens.

“Why?”

His chest moves with a long breath, dragging against mine.

And I push my body into his. I press against his torso, bloody and wounded, and ask, “Tell me why.”

He grits his jaw.

But I don’t let it go. “Tell me why you remember, down to the very minute, how long you’ve been watching me. Tell me why you kept saving me from all those men. And don’t give me that hunter bullshit again because I know that’s not the whole truth. Tell me why you notice things about me that no one else has. Why does it matter to you if I’m scared, if I’m in danger? Why do you care if I put myself through those awful dates? Why did you put me in a blue room? Why did you care to cook my breakfast just the way I like? Why didn’t you let your wolves just eat me? When we both know there’s a reason you’re a bigger threat to me, the biggest, anywhere. And it has nothing to do with land or your best friend’s revenge. Tell me why, Radisson. You’ve hurt me, yes, but why don’t you just”—I pull at his shirt and swallow—“hurt me?”

He’s breathing hard, his chest digging into mine. His jaw is pulsing, and there’s something lurking in his eyes that looks like a thousand things at once. Anger, irritation, intensity. Possessiveness. So much of it that it causes a burn in my belly.

“Because,” he begins slowly, his voice low and gruff, “six months, four weeks, one day, ten hours, and fifteen minutes ago, before you were the Turner Princess, you were just a girl I was sent to watch. Just a princess I saw through the window one night. With the longest hair I’d ever seen, yellow and thick. So soft-lookin’, like a cloud, and you were sittin’ at the edge of your bed, slowly braidin’ it, gettin’ ready for the night, your small hands workin’, your smooth brow furrowed with concentration. And when you stood up, that braid fell down to the small of your back and I”—he looks away, his eyes glazed over as if he’s seeing it right now—“had to fist my hands, grit my fuckin’ teeth, tighten my entire body, all so I could stay put in my spot. Right where I was, hidin’ in the shadows. Instead of bustin’ through your window and grabbin’ you; instead of wrappin’ your pretty braid around my wrist like a rope and takin’ you for myself. Like those same assholes who came at you in that alley, the ones I fed to the coyotes in the mountains.”

I blink and my mouth parts once again. But no words come out, not even a sound.

But just like before, he doesn’t hold back. “’Cause before you were the Turner Princess, you were just a princess, sittin’ in her blue room, wearin’ her blue dresses, with the smoothest skin I’d ever seen. It shined under the moonlight, sparkled under the sun, just like your pretty blue eyes. Made me think of silk. Of roses. Made me think of things I’d forgotten about, soft things instead of things as coarse and rough as my ropes that make my head hurt.

“’Cause before I found out you’re the daughter of the man who killed my family, you were just a girl who I watched goin’ out with men she didn’t like, men she couldn’t stand, but she still did it. I don’t know why.” His eyes narrow as he continues, “She won’t tell me. But I saw enough that every time she left them, I made sure those motherfuckers knew pain. They knew punishment for puttin’ her through that. For makin’ her do things she didn’t wanna do.”

“Radisson,” I whisper, my heart beating, bruising my insides.