Page 62 of Born for Silk
Wait.
My eyes shoot up from the steel-capped boot to see Rome sitting in the dark corner of the room on the large red leather sofa I’ve yet to sit on.
Radiating confidence, he is leaning back, his thick arm draped over the high rest. His chest is bare—shirtless— and shadows dance across the deep grooves of his abdomen.
I swallow.
He stares at me. “You dream.”
Shit.
I’m not ready to see him.
My pulse thumps so hard the thin column of my throat seems to protest.
I have so many things I want to say, ‘get out’, ‘why?’, ‘you’re a monster’, ‘I trusted you’, ‘I liked you’, but my mouth only peeps open before closing on a thought: ‘You will never speak again.’
Never speak again…
The image of my tiny hand scooping that small bird up comes to mind. I seem to always seek meaning from my oldest memory. After all, it must be there for a reason.
Maybe the useless little thing didn’t try to escape, wasn’t brave or determined to spread its wings. It simply hit the glass because it was ignorant and confused about its situation and place in the world.
I feel ignorant and confused about mine.
Upside-down bird.
Upside-down bird.
“Are you hurt?”
I turn my face from him and roll my shoulder. There is the dullest of aches, but nothing new to me, given I have been bullied and shoved around my entire life.
“Answer me.”
All the contradictory messages suddenly pull me in every direction. This way—'you’re weak.’
And that way—‘I am enamoured with you.’
This way—'get out.’
And that way—'are you hurt?’
I can usually roll with the punches; I always have. Iris. The Endigo. A life of servitude. No questions. No answers. But lately the punches have been soothed and kissed and I don’t know how to adapt to kindness after cruelty.
I suddenly let a quick, pathetic little sob break from between my lips. Then, wipe a single defiant tear away.
He rises to his feet.
“Aster. You’re in pain.”
He walks toward me, and I shuffle backward along the bed, not wanting him to touch me—melt me.
“Don’t do that, little creature.” Darkness barely conceals the regret in his gaze. “I lost my temper. I’m here to make amends, dammit.”
He could slide on and stalk me across the mattress, but he doesn’t. He circles the post and comes to the side, sitting down, facing away from where I huddle.
Outside of the shadows now, his muscular back is completely visible, a landscape of stories written with angry scars and tattoos.