Dark Need (House of Sin 3)

More minutes pass, and my racing heart begins to slow down.

No response again.

“Okay, enough.” Soren leans forward and kicks the door so hard it slams open against the wall.

“Hey!” I yell. “That’s someone’s house you’re breaking into!”

“Not a house,” he retorts, throwing me a look before dragging himself inside.

“Vacation home then, fine.”

“They’re not here.”

“Well, they could have been,” I say, walking in behind him. “It’s their property. No need to damage it.”

He leans against a table in the middle of the cabin, only slightly less menacing, because he’s still a towering giant as he looks at me. “Close the door.”

His voice and the command alone make me do what he says. Not just because it’s the safest option, considering the bear still wandering out there, but also because I’m finding it harder and harder not to do precisely what he tells me.

And I don’t understand why.

Maybe it’s the coarseness in his voice that’s forcing me to.

Or maybe it’s the penetrative stare boring a hole through my heart.

I swallow as the lock falls into place, and we’re all alone again with nothing but silence and a million unspoken words.

The air between us crackles with tension. All he has to do is look at me to make me feel small. But not in a way that’s threatening or dangerous …

In a way that makes me want to beg.

What is wrong with me?

Why do I feel this way when I’m around him?

I have to stop. I have to go do something else.

I clear my throat and walk off to inspect the cabin and take my mind off things even though I can feel his stare burning in my back. The cabin only has one bedroom and one bathroom with a small toilet and a shower hose. There’s a tiny kitchenette and a living room with a small but cozy-looking red couch with only a wooden table and two shabby chairs separating the two areas.

It’s not a lot, but it’s a whole lot better than a forest bed made of grass, leaves, and twigs.

Sighing out loud, I put the bag on the table and point at the chair. “Sit.”

He throws me a damning look that reminds me of lightning splitting a tree in half, but I’m not scared of him. He won’t hurt me.

And when I cross my arms, he finally does what I say so I can work on him.

I fish some rubbing alcohol from the bag and a bunch of cotton pads and soak them all in it. Then I grab a chair and sit right in front of him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

I swallow. “Take off your shirt.”

He frowns, and then a smile appears. “Are you trying to get me naked, woman?”

I try not to let it get to me even though my cheeks are surely changing color again. “C’mon.”

He snorts and hooks his fingers under his shirt, groaning in pain as he pulls it over his head. My eyes immediately lock onto the ridges of his abs and the cut lines of his toned muscles, gulping as if I’ve never seen a ripped man before.

Focus, April. Just do what you need to do.

I grab the cotton and rub the wounds on his chest with the alcohol, making him hiss in pain. Suddenly, he grabs my wrist and forces me to stop while glaring at me.

“I’m trying to clean your wound,” I say.

He narrows his eyes.

“It’ll only hurt for a second.”

After a short but deadly stare, he releases my wrist again, and I continue working on his chest, trying desperately to avoid his eyes because he can’t take them off me.

“Tell me why.”

His sudden question makes me stop midair with a cotton pad still between my fingers.

“Why what?”

“Why would you want to help me?”

I rub my lips together. “I already told you, I—”

“Be honest.”

I look up at him, completely stunned by the question and the implications behind it.

Because I know, deep down, that I didn’t just help him because it was the right thing to do.

That I didn’t just come back because running would make me a bad person.

Because the second I ran, fear lodged itself into my heart so violently that it made me choke up. Fear of … knowing that he’d perish.

And for some reason, that makes my throat jam up.

His blue eyes are so crystal clear when he looks at me as though he doesn’t have a single doubt in this world. Like he knows exactly what he wants and what he’s supposed to do, and nothing can stop him. And I’m just … so confused.

When I look at him, a mixture of emotions swirls through my heart, and I don’t know which one is the right one to pick. But it’s impossible to look away and think. All I can do is stare at his face, his buff chest, that chiseled jaw hiding underneath the scruffy beard, and that tongue dipping out to lick those sultry lips and all the things that they do to my fluttering heart.