Chapter 31
The Mask
Isabelle shrank away from me. The terrified gasp that left her lips, the way her hand moved to her chest to steady her heartbeat, all of it filled me with satisfaction.
Let her be fucking scared. Let her realise what she’d done.
Let her feel even a shred of what I’d felt seeing those messages.
Messages meant for him.
Words of affection towards him, thanking him, caring about him.
I had expected her to annoy me with this phone. I had expected her to cross boundaries.
What I hadn’t expected was for her to run straight back to another man within five fucking minutes. Not after last night. Not after the past few days.
I wanted to squeeze her throat until she wasn’t capable of gasping in fear anymore. I wanted to choke her until spit bubbled from her mouth and her eyes pleaded with me to show her some mercy. I wanted her to fucking hurt. I wanted her pain. I wanted her to know how this fucking felt!
She’s hurt, Silas. She’s hurt, and she’s scared. Be patient with her.
As always, the voice of reason whispered to me, calming me down, preventing me from acting on feeling alone. It was the same gentle, soft voice I remembered my mother having, and it encouraged me to stop and process.
Any other time it had worked. But now? Now I wanted to rip out my brain and stomp all over that memory.
I wanted to rid any sanity from my mind and become the savage beast everyone expected me to be.
I wanted to rip Isabelle apart and piece her back together in a way that made her realise—I was hers.
I wanted to mould her body to respond only to mine.
I wanted to bend her mind to forget everyone but me and the life I wanted for us.
Patience, Silas. She’ll run a mile if you scare her. You’ll undo all your progress. Give her something. Show her who you are. Tell her about—
I wouldn’t be fucking telling her about anything.
If she trusted him over me, I wasn’t giving her any of my fucking secrets.
But the voice was right.
This rage I felt, this burning, seething anger? It was partially my fault. I’d done this to her. I’d created this situation.
And so I would give her one thing.
I would listen to the voice, and I’d give her something. Because as much as I was hurting, as much as I wanted her to hurt, I also didn’t want to undo everything. I wanted to move forward with her.
Swallowing down my rage, I stepped further into the bedroom, softly kicking the door shut behind me.
Isabelle scrambled to the floor, putting the bed between me and her, and braced her hands on the mattress, steadying herself.
For the first time in my life—or at least the first time I could remember—I wanted to talk. I wanted to verbally communicate with another human being. I wanted to let someone in.
But she wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t ready for what that would mean.
And so I communicated the only other way I knew how.
I showed her.
Keeping my eyes locked on her own terrified face, I pocketed the phone and brought my hand to my face, removing the mask and letting her see the man beneath.
I thought I had been prepared for her reaction. I thought I had been ready for it. But seeing her flinch, seeing her physically recoil, hearing the gasp of half horror, half terror… I hadn’t been ready at all.
A wave of hurt rolled through me, reminding me why I never did this. Why I never dropped the masked persona.
Since I had already come this far, I reached towards my eyes and removed the black contacts, baring myself completely.
Not that she noticed. She couldn’t bring herself to look at me. Her gaze flickered everywhere but the man in front of her. On the odd occasion she did accidentally look at some part of me, she cringed, her body curling in on itself, as though protecting her from what she was seeing.
The silence stretched on, and all I could focus on was her.
I knew how I looked.
I knew how uneven the burns were. How it had stretched and puckered the skin near my ear.
How it had damaged the corner of my left eye, pulling it tighter.
The burn stretched over the left side of my face, up into my hairline and down my neck.
I’d only been a child when this was done to me, and the entire shape of my face had changed since then.
Add to that the numerous skin grafts I’d received, and I was left with uneven, patchy patterns.
How could I expect her to look at me when I could barely stand to look at myself?
I closed my eyes and went to put the mask back on, wanting to be done with this entire situation—a situation I never should have put myself in—when I felt a small, soft hand on my arm.
Isabelle had turned the tables on me, crossing the room silently, just as I had done to her so many times.
Without a word, her hand slipped down to my glove, her eyes locking onto mine as she silently asked for permission.
I nodded once, and with a gentle, soothing smile, she carefully removed the glove from my hand.
A pained sigh left her when she took in the scars and burns there as well—some from the acid attack, others I had caused myself. But the sigh wasn’t one of disgust. It wasn’t even one of sympathy. It was just a sigh.
It could have been relief. It could have been shock. It could have been any number of emotions.
But it wasn’t disgust. She wasn’t pulling away from me.
She lifted my hand slightly, holding it in both of her tiny ones, her fingers tracing over the burns. They ran over my knuckles, and over the back of my hand, running down to my wrist and along the joint. She felt every divot, every groove, every last, painful wound I owned.
And when her fingers slipped beneath the cuff of my shirt, feeling how the burn continued up my arm, her eyes looked back up to my face, meeting my gaze with her own steady look.
Tears pooled on her lower lashes, but her eyes weren’t filled with anything other than… dare I say kindness? Softness?
“Silas,” she whispered, closing her eyes briefly, a single tear slipping past her lashes and down her cheek. Then her hand dropped mine, and her fingers were reaching for me, cupping my cheeks.
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she said softly, rising up on her tiptoes, her breath fanning against my cheek.
I closed my eyes, barely able to feel her breath since the nerves beneath the burns had been ruined, and yet I felt more than I ever had since I was a child.
I sensed her breath on me, her words whispering over my skin, lingering just as much as her fingers did.
Just as she did with my hand, her fingers traced everything her eyes could see, and not once did she recoil or flinch, or even cringe.
With a gentleness I’d started to believe was impossible, she stroked every wound with one hand, her other buried in my hair, scraping my scalp with her fingernails.
She paused, and I was just about to open my eyes when I felt her gently pull on my head, just enough for her to bring my face close enough to hers that she could rest her forehead against mine.
She still had one hand deep in my hair, the other cupping my cheek, and before I could stop myself, I reached up to grab her wrist, holding her firmer in place against me.
Then I turned and placed a kiss to the palm of her hand.
I had never felt my lips on another person before. I’d always taken my women from behind, never focusing on their faces. They had always been a means to an end, a relief to an itch that was as primal as it was unwanted.
I didn’t want to be a slave to my desires.
But I wanted to feel Isabelle. I wanted her close to me. I wanted every part of her pressed against me.
A thought came to me then that I would happily endure another acid attack if it meant I could fuse us together permanently, her skin against mine forever.
Because I was never going to let this woman go.
And then I felt her lips lightly brush against mine.