Chapter 8
Leena
No one has ever stood up for me.
All my life, I’ve been at the mercy of the people who were supposed to love and protect me. My mother. My father. My brothers. If my sisters had lived with me, maybe they would have stood up for me, but as it was, they were never there and they had their own set of problems.
I’ve never had anything to call my own. I always knew that my few possessions could be taken from me as easily as the roof over my head.
I’ve never really had anyone either. My mother was always too busy chasing after a man who didn’t want her, a man who had never really wanted her, and when she finally figured out she was never going to have my father’s love, she abandoned the product of it, the physical reminder of it—me.
I was never anything more than a burden to my father.
Just another useless daughter that he didn’t really want.
A reminder to him, that women were nothing more than Delilahs and Jezebels.
My brothers are like clones of my father.
They’ll do what he says in the hope that one day, they’ll prove themselves worthy of inheriting his empire of grime.
I’ve never had so much as a crush on a boy.
To me, men were always this entity that I never fully trusted.
They represented the twisting and crushing of hope.
I watched my father destroy my mother over the years and I never wanted to give anyone the power to do that to me.
I was never even actually attracted to the guys in my school.
They seemed boyish and immature. I was friendly with them, and they were friendly in return, which was nice, because most of the girls in my class seemed to intrinsically hate me.
They curled off into catty little groups that I didn’t want to be a part of anyway.
This man though…
I breathe in a deep, shaky breath past the tears stopping up the bridge of my nose and burning at the back of my throat.
He smells good. Dark and dusky, spicy and smoky, but most important, he smells like trust. I didn’t know that emotions had a smell, but on him, they do.
I can scent the dark potency of his rage, and as his arms sweep around my back to hold me so tentatively and gently, I feel safe, protected in a way that I never have before, like the strength of a stone wall, centuries old, has just been wrapped around me, shielding me from the horrors of the outside world.
A strong, steady pulse throbs between my legs as I realize how close we’re pressed, how my hands are splayed over his shirt, the ridged hardness below evident under the thin cotton barrier.
He’s warm, his heat seeping into me. His shoulders heave as he takes a hard breath and his hand sweeps protectively to the back of my neck.
Something warm and terrifying unfurls in my belly and the pulse hammering at my neck throbs lower, between my thighs. A shiver gnaws at my spine, licks its way up my back, until hot heat floods the base of my neck, right where his strong, unyielding hand is wrapped.
I pull away, confused and unsettled, and he lets me.
I know I shouldn’t, that I should detach myself, pull away, put distance between us and this confusing heat wrapping itself around my heart like steel bands, but I don’t.
I can’t. Instead, I look up into the face of my defender and my unlikely savior.
His eyes burn black, like coals, or maybe it’s just because the pupils are so blown, devouring his softer velvet brown irises entirely.
I can feel him tense, his entire body going rigid. His square jaw clenches and a deep furrow appears over his broad forehead. His masculine lips pull into a thin line and his nostrils flare.
I’m about to ask him, stupidly, why he’s looking at me that way. I hate that I’ve done something to make him unhappy. I sink my teeth into my lower lip, blinking furiously against the tide of fresh tears pricking the backs of my eyes.
I realize we haven’t said anything, that I threw myself at him, but it isn’t that.
Slowly, like the clouds rolling back to reveal the sun, understanding breaks through the fog of my confusion.
I let my eyes scrape over his face again, boldly, because it doesn’t even cross my mind that I shouldn’t look at him that way.
His clenched jaw. The pulse point hammering at his throat.
The vein jumping in his forehead. His dark, blazing eyes so hot that his gaze sizzles against my skin.
The air sizzles, charged between us. I watch, in utter fascination, as his hand shifts away from my neck, leaving me warm and sweaty where his heavy palm just rested.
He sweeps his hand through the tangled snarls of my hair, combing out the remnants of my curls, until he reaches the end of one strand.
He smooths it between his fingers and a rough, animal sounding groan is torn from his throat.
I feel it in the tightly coiled pit of my stomach, that raspy sound like gas heaped on the burning coals of the sensation I now recognize as desire.
Something is torn from my throat, an echo of that sound that mirrors his.
Wraith drops my hair and steps back like I’ve poisoned him, shot an arrow dripping with venom straight into his most vital organs.
“You should shower,” he says roughly, before he turns and starts to manhandle the boxes he’s brought inside.
I step back too, my pride, or something close to it, wounded at his apparent rejection.
Rejection of what, I’m not sure. I don’t understand what passed between us.
I don’t know why my heart is hammering against the cage of my ribs so wildly.
I’m confused by the dampness gathering between my legs and the way I feel sore and achy all over, straight down to my bones.
I wait until Wraith carries a box from the entrance to god knows where, before I scurry back through the kitchen.
A sharp hallway banks hard to the left and I head that way, even though I can hear stirring in the back.
The house is tiny, and it doesn’t take me long to push open the door that is the bathroom.
I slam it closed and lean hard up against it, breathing even harder.
My mind whirls frantically. I was so afraid this morning, reluctant and bitter at the fact that I was being traded away to further my father’s ambition.
I hated him, hated him with the flames of burning passion licking away at the brightly burning embers already lit in my soul.
And now…
I was so sure I’d hate the man who would be my husband.
I didn’t see him as an actual person with thoughts and feelings, with a heart beating inside his own chest. I didn’t understand that he might be as reluctant as me, that for him, this wasn’t about ambition.
That he was equally as pressed into this union as I was.
I didn’t imagine him as someone who would defend me and protect me. Who would take issue with the insults that had been heaped on me my entire life. Who would rather bruise his own body than let those words bruise my soul.
I could never have known that the abstract husband from just that morning had eyes the color of chocolate velvet fringed by the darkest, thickest lashes.
I couldn’t know that he’d have strong, masculine lips that I’d want pressed against my own.
I didn’t imagine his skin would be dark, bronzed honey or that I’d want to taste it the same way my mouth waters over a delicious looking dessert.
I give my head a hard shake at the same time my hands claw over my dress, trying to frantically rip it off of my overheated skin.
All I can think about is getting in the shower.
I don’t even take time to notice how the bathroom has obviously been re-done or the detail that’s gone into it.
My whole attention is focused on ripping that fucking dress off me, cranking on the cold spray, and stepping underneath.
I let out a gasp at the violent change in temperature, at the cold water sluicing over my fiery skin.
After a few minutes of shivering, my teeth chattering so hard that I’m afraid they’re going to chip on each other, I realize that the cold has done absolutely nothing to quell the burn that radiates just below the surface like hot magma at the center of the earth.
I bend and reluctantly switch on the hot, just enough to make the spray tolerable.
Under the lukewarm water, my skin thaws and my goosebumps disappear.
I glance around at the tile surrounding the bathtub, at the intricate patterns the little blue squares have been placed into, at the even white grout that holds it all in place.
I stare at the tub, a newer, deeper device with jets, at the glass enclosure at the edge, at the rain head shower with the gentle spray pouring so gently over me.
My eyes track the rest of the small bathroom.
I take everything in, from the new, water conserving toilet with the complicated flush buttons on top, to the square sink with a faucet above that looks like the water will pour out from the top, not the bottom.
I let my gaze linger over the tiled floor, big square white tiles with the same little blue tiles from the backsplash at the sink and surrounding the tub, interspersed.
Like a puzzle, the pieces of the house come together in my mind. The newer porch. The red door. The beautiful wooden floors and freshly painted walls. I haven’t really seen the kitchen yet, but I caught a glimpse of dark cabinets and white countertops as I skirted by.