Page 61 of The Death King
“Then I don’t owe you the benefit of the doubt.” The hatred and resentment burned so deep, but I was still entranced by that hard jawline and even harder eyes. His raw handsomeness was easier to ignore when there was distance between us, but now that his lips had been on mine and his dick in my mouth, it was a lot more difficult to dismiss. It was impossible to pretend he wasn’t the most attractive man I’d ever seen in my life. Even when I was a young girl, I’d recognized it—and he hadn’t aged a day.
“I’ve given you freedom?—”
“After your regime made me a prisoner?—”
“I’ve given you the freedom of choice. I’ve never crossed a line you’ve drawn. Your requests have always been respected—even when I didn’t want to respect them. I have the ability to do anything I want, but I’ve never done that to you. Every moment of passion I’ve had with you has been earned, not taken. So yes, your hatred is greatly misplaced.”
I wanted to look away, but something about his gaze kept me locked in place.
His angry stare continued to bore into mine. Invisible smoke blew from his nostrils. “There are men like General Titan—and there are men like me. The difference is very clear.”
I found the strength to look away and sever the contact between our eyes. I shouldn’t be grateful that he respected my wishes, not when we should live in a world where every woman’s choices were respected, but that simply wasn’t reality. What had happened to me had happened to countless others—and it would continue to happen.
“I’m not sorry that I conquered your lands and your people, but I am sorry that it came at such great personal cost to you.”
I still wouldn’t look at him, not even when I heard the sincerity in his voice, heard it ring like a bell from a church.
“I only speak my truth—never lies. I mean what I say, and you know I mean it.”
I turned back to him, the locked gates over my heart coming open and swinging forward.
His stare hadn’t changed, sharp and puncturing my skin. “Let me fix my wrongs. Let me fix you.”
“I can’t be fixed.” My words escaped as a painful whisper. The scars he saw were a mere fraction of the destruction. “I wouldn’t be here right now if I had just mustered up the courage to end it, but I was too much of a coward.” I’d had two different opportunities, opportunities that I squandered, opportunities that would never come again.
I stared at the table as I let the silence linger, as I remembered being submerged in the warm water, unable to see the surface because of the bubbles that floated on the top. I remembered the dagger General Titan had carelessly left behind. Instead of slitting my own throat, I’d chosen to lunge at his…unsuccessfully. The memories came and went, and as they passed, I felt a stare more intense than ever before.
My eyes lifted back to his.
His stare pierced my flesh so forcefully, he looked angry—not angry with me…but just angry. Eyes as dark as midnight suddenly became fathomless, their pain and sorrow visible like poetry on parchment. Seconds passed until a full minute had come and gone. His eyes never strayed from my face, my words provoking him in a way nothing else ever had.
The tension was so much I almost looked away, but the power in his gaze kept me still.
“You’re not alone.” His voice was soft in comparison to the harshness of his stare, smooth like the surface of the sharpest blade. “I understand your sorrow.” He didn’t wear the expression of a broken person, his eyes always so confident and demanding, but his words rang with sincerity.
“Do you?” I whispered, wanting to know his story the way he knew mine.
But he let the silence envelop us both. Let it linger like a festering wound. Let the tension seep into our bones.
The disappointment hit me like a boot to the stomach. I was desperate to know the man who had subjugated my people, figure out how he could teeter on the edge of good and evil without committing to either side. I shouldn’t care about his character, not when my only focus was to usurp this dictator, but I did care. I cared more than I wanted to admit.
His stare hardened once more, his sympathy slowly evaporating like water from a boiling pot. His hand moved to his glass, and he took another drink before he stared at the table, his hands resting on the surface. “You’re young. You’re beautiful. You deserve to know the pleasures of the flesh. A man shouldn’t take that away from you. You deserve to come so hard it hurts.”
A flush stole over my cheeks, and I wanted to look away, but I was enraptured by the way he spoke about delicate matters so confidently.
He raised his chin and looked at me, a man unafraid to make others uncomfortable. “Let me erase those memories. Let me teach you. Let me help you. You’ll love a man someday, and you’ll be able to fully experience that bliss because this part of you will be healed.”
“You sound so altruistic.”
“My desire for you is selfish. But my desire to make you feel good is not.”
“Why do you care?” For a man who didn’t care about anything, he sure cared about this.
He was quiet for a long time. “Because I do.”
I was the one on display. I was the one analyzed. But he gave nothing of himself—ever. There was no explanation. There was no revelation. I hardly knew him better now than I did when I tried to steal his dragon.
His dark eyes bored into mine. “Will you let me?”