Promise to Keep (Vow To Protect 2)

Her gaze shifts to the glass and then back to me. I know she doesn’t see it yet because I don’t even see it. Not really. It’s like my body has taken control, my baser instincts to claim on overdrive, especially without a good enough reason from her to leave. Not that I’d ever be able to think of a good enough reason.

I press the shard’s point to her exposed forearm, and she freezes with a gasp. When she starts to jerk away from me, I snatch her wrist flat and hold it down against her thigh. “No, Angel. I gave you the chance to talk to me. To make me see reason. Now other needs are in control, and the only thing I want is to mark you, claim you, own you like I deserve.”

She whimpers, and I hate the sound from her lips. Even that day I made her strip naked in front of me, she didn’t make such pitiful sounds. “Why are you doing this?”

I draw the edge of the glass across her skin no more than a few millimeters. A tiny well of blood clings to the edge, matching my own. “I want to carve you up, put my name on every inch of your body so no one, especially you, will ever forget who you belong to.”

I stare down at that drop of blood, mesmerized by the idea of my name there…each letter scarred over and white against her peachy skin. But I keep my hand still, unmoving. It seems even now, with my baser instincts driving me, I can’t hurt her that way. Not like her father did, not like her fiancé did.

I’m almost ready to throw the glass away, get it out of my sight so I don’t finish what I started, when her hand lands on top of mine.

I glance up into her red-rimmed eyes and stutter out an exhale. There’s no fear there…something softer, gentler…that tiny glimmer of the woman I love.

“If this is what you need to do to forgive me, then do it. I can take it. I can take it for you.”

9

VALENTINA

“I would do anything for you,” I whisper. “Whatever you need.”

He brings the shard of glass up to my face, my own hand still clutching his. “Except stay. You’ll do anything for me except stay.” His voice is a chasm of pain. A reflection of the abandonment he’s suffered over and over again in his life—by his mother, his father, and now me.

It hits me that I’ve only added to his pain. Threaded my own betrayal in with everyone else he’s loved in his life. My hand shakes, and I let it fall to my lap so he’s pressing the glass into my cheek alone.

“Do it,” I say, hoping he can hear the apology in my tone. “Do what you need to do to forgive me.”

His eyes search mine, back and forth, dark and unyielding. Every part of him screams to press the point to my flesh and let it bite down. To etch him into me so that it’s permanent. More permanent than our wedding vows.

When his hands tremble, the tips of his fingers fluttering against my cheek, he drops the glass. It hits the floor and shatters around our feet to join the rest of the rubble.

He grips my arms tightly, squeezing me together, crumpling me inward like a piece of paper. It’s not to hurt me, I can tell by the set of his jaw, but to remind me how close to the edge he remains. If I knew how to bring him back to the light, I would, but I fear I’ll never be able to walk there again. Not when so much of me has been stained with blood.

I close my eyes and breathe him in. Even as I feared him hunting me down and finding me…I also feared never seeing him again. Never tracing the edge of his jawline or smelling his clean smoky ginger scent. It’s what I thought about when I was alone. That scent. Even now, it winds around my body, calming me in ways I haven’t been for too long.

When he reaches under my legs and lifts me, my eyes snap open. But I don’t tangle my hands around his neck and into his hair. He probably wouldn’t reject me, but if he did, I couldn’t bear it. Not after everything that’s happened today.

“Easy, Angel. I’m just going to wash you,” he whispers. Unlike the first time he bathed me, he starts the shower and walks us both inside, clothing and all. Once under the multiple showerheads delivering delicious hot sprays over my tense muscles, he rips at his clothing. Nothing of the careful, deliberate man is in his eyes now. As if my leaving him has stripped a part of him away. It hurts because I love that part of him.