He held my fingers tightly grasped within his, interlacing them in a way that felt far too comfortable for me. I wanted to hate it. Wanted to despise the stain of his blood-soaked hands on my skin. He led me into the bedroom, ignoring the way I dragged my feet, and headed straight for the bathroom.
I tried to find solace in his promise not to touch me unless I begged him to. My body was drawn tight, every muscle locked as I prepared myself for the fight that would come if he went back on his word. In the end, I had no reason to trust him, no reason to believe that anything he’d told me was true. He was a murderer, and he’d stolen me from the man who was meant to be my husband.
It was fortunate I hadn’t loved Damianos or felt anything when I’d watched him crumple to the floor in front of me, the hole in his head allowing me to see inside to what made him. It was an odd sort of reminder of our mortality, and how we were all just sacks of meat to be destroyed and manipulated however necessary.
But I couldn’t say that my hypothetical love for my potential husband would have stopped Calix from killing him. I suspected it was the opposite, in fact, and that frightened me more than anything. How much loyalty and honor could I expect from him if he would have killed the man I loved to take me as his?
I swallowed as he released me, wishing I’d had the time to grab the towel from my seat on the patio. As my bravado fled, I felt far too exposed by the skimpy bikini I’d donned just to irritate Calix. It hadn’t worked out the way I’d wanted, and I highly doubted I would make the same mistake again.
More clothing was better where Calix was concerned. I needed less skin for him to touch with his strong, calloused hands that reminded me of how they felt roaming over my body.
He plugged the drain in the enormous claw foot tub that sat in front of floor to ceiling bay windows. I stood back by the vanity on one side of the bathroom, hiding myself behind the seat in the center of the room as if it could protect me if he tried to bathe with me. The sound of running water filled the room as he started the tub, and I swallowed as I dropped a single hand to the top of the marble counter.
He approached me slowly, that distinctive, arrogant pace of his doing nothing to settle my nerves. To think that this man had watched me touch myself in the privacy of my bedroom; to think that he’d been privy to the most private of my moments in a life that had been controlled in every other aspect…
I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t know what to make of a husband who didn’t expect me to pretend to be naive. Lydia had taught me how to please my husband in theory. She’d spoken of all the games women played, from being coy and sweet to submitting to every one of their husbands’ desires—no matter how frightening they may seem at first.
But I didn’t want to submit to Calix. I didn’t want to bow to him out of fear the way I would have with Damianos.
I wanted him to fucking earn it, because he damn well had a lot of years to make up for.
Calix stepped up behind me, using the pressure of his hips at my ass to twist my body until I faced the bathroom counter straight on. He wrapped his arms around me, running his fingers down my bare arms until I shivered and goosebumps raised on my flesh. The sight of his strong hands on my skin made something inside of me clench tight, feeling empty of everything I knew he could offer me.
His hands continued to slide down until they covered each of mine, pressing my palms into the countertop and leaning his weight into my back. His mouth rested against the side of my head and he murmured into my hair with a groan that he punctuated with a shallow thrust of his hips against me. “Gray,” he said simply, pushing harder at my hands to make his meaning clear.
“The counter?” I asked, my voice sounding far too breathy to be natural. It betrayed every amount of desire building within me, and every bit of all the things I couldn’t want from him.
“The house,” he corrected, sliding his hands back up my arms once again as he lowered his head to my shoulder. My head shifted to the side to give him better access, defying me and the logical response to his touch.
My body was a fucking traitor for him, leaning into him and craving even the simplest deception of affection. For so long, all I’d known was pain. I just wanted to be touched in ways that didn’t hurt.
“The entire house is gray?” I asked, chuckling as I tried to process those words. What an absurd concept, to think that an entire house could be one color. One note. One shade.
He rubbed his lips over my skin, pressing a kiss to the spot where my neck met my shoulder and smiling into the hollow when I shuddered. “Gray, black, and white. This is your home, λουλούδι μου. You deserve to be able to see it,” he murmured against me. Everything in me stilled as he continued to rub his mouth against me, and I watched my reflection in the mirror as I blinked.
Tears burned my eyes. It was such a stupid thing to care about. What did it matter if a house was in full color? It would always be shades of gray to me. But there was something about knowing that I saw the same thing as everyone else that made me feel less broken.
It went against everything my father had been determined to make me believe about myself.
He had said time and time again that my color-blindness was a deformity, a mutation that he would have rid himself of when I’d been born if he’d known. But by the time I’d revealed I couldn’t see colors, the rest of the families knew of my existence.
To kill me would have raised more questions, so I’d been trained to hide my secret. To hide my deformity. To never let anyone know the daughter of Origen Karras was ruined from birth. But Calix didn’t make me feel broken. He didn’t make me feel like I was damaged. He made me feel unique, like my perspective was beautiful.
“Why would you do such a thing? How can you want to live in a world without color?” I asked, swallowing back the surging emotions as I turned away from the mirror. I spun in his arms, placing my hands on the fabric of his white button-up shirt at his shoulders.
Calix stared down at me, all traces of arrogance fleeing his face as he studied me. He seemed to realize that the confession, this moment, meant something to me. It had sunk inside of me and threatened to claw away at my reserve. “Maybe I want to see the world through your eyes,” he said softly, reaching up to tuck my hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered at the slight tip at the tops of my ears, at the oddity Lydia had insisted I hide at all times.
My breath caught.
“The world through my eyes is boring,” I said, tilting my chin down to look at the floor and trying to swallow past the tightness in my throat. They were too much, the sudden fullness in my chest and the warmth trying to fill the cold recesses of my soul.
“Somehow I doubt that’s true,” he said, sliding his finger along my jaw until he could grasp my chin in his hand. He lifted it, raising it until I met his stare. “Come with me.”
He took my hand once more, guiding me away from the bathroom and the tub that was still filling with hot water. “Where are we going?” I asked as he led me through the bathroom and to the hallway outside.
Guiding me a few doors down, he brought me to the closed French doors I’d seen earlier in the day and resisted the urge to go snooping behind. I’d assumed it would be his office, but as he placed his hands on the handles, I realized how wrong I’d been. “You may have been sheltered and a prisoner in your own life, but you still found a way to live a thousand other lives.”
He pushed the doors open, stepping out of the way so that I could move into the ornate, bright space. Windows lined the outer walls, illuminating the room in the fading light of the evening. The other walls were covered with shelves that extended to the ceiling, a rolling ladder on a rail making it possible to reach what was on the top. Some of the shelves were empty, but most of them…
Most of them were filled with books. More books than I could have ever imagined in my lifetime.
“What is this?” I asked, spinning to look at him as he stepped into the library.
“Yours,” he said, moving to a shelf on the left. He plucked out a book I recognized, a story about a clan of witches who were dedicated to the stars in the sky. “The books over here are ones you’ve already read. The ones everywhere else are ones I thought you may like, given your reading tastes.”
“How do you know what I’ve read?” I asked, thinking back to all the times I’d read on my e-reader. I’d longed to hold the physical books in my hand, but my father and Lydia would have been furious to discover what I read. As it was, it seemed they hadn’t bothered to look at my download history.
“Christian connected your device to an account I owned, not your father’s, so all your purchases came to me,” Calix said, shrugging his shoulders as I walked over to the books he claimed I’d read.
“This isn’t all of them,” I said, running my fingers over the spines.
“I didn’t purchase any you didn’t particularly enjoy,” he answered, coming up behind me. He swept my hair up, wrapping it around his fist and tugging my head to the side with gentle pressure. He used his grip to tip my head back, twisting my neck so that I craned to look at him as he stood behind me. “I most definitely purchased any of the books you liked enough to touch yourself while you read them. I have watched your fingers dance over your pussy so many times, thinking of how you must have longed to have a man drive inside of you. I pictured you clenching down on me as you came, taking the cum from my balls. Now I have to wonder if you’ll turn to me to ease the ache reading gives you.”
He pulled away, releasing my hair as I fought to catch my breath. My protest hung between us, wordless as I couldn’t force myself to tell him that I would never ask him to touch me. The moment he got his hands on me, I melted, and the sweet little oddities he’d gone out of his way to give me didn’t help me resist him.
He was far more charming than he had any right to be.
Calix reached above my head, grasping one of the books and flipping through the pages. He earmarked a chapter when he came to what he was searching for, tucking the book under his arm and taking my hand in his. He guided me to the bathroom once more, leaning down in the doorway to press a kiss against my lips as he handed me the book. “Have a nice bath, Little One.”
He retreated quickly, leaving me to close the door and lean my weight into it as I eyed the nearly-filled tub with apprehension.
Calix Regas would be the death of me.
Iflipped the page, enjoying the way the warm water surrounded me and soothed the aches I had no business even having. It wasn’t as if I’d done anything remotely strenuous the day before, lounging in and out of the pool most of the day.
I’d found it difficult to relax when I first lowered myself into the bath, eyeing the locked door as if it would open at any moment. It wasn’t as if Calix hadn’t already seen everything I had to offer. He’d helped me wash myself in the shower the night before.
But, having since admitted that I was incapable of resisting his touch, I had a feeling locked doors would become my new best friends.
I carefully avoided the scene Calix had earmarked for me after my curiosity had driven me to open it and skim the scene. The words on the page had told the story of a witch running through the woods, trying to escape the hunter chasing her. It wasn’t written in a way that was meant to be terrifying, and the witch knew it was all a game, but her blood pumped regardless. Adrenalin flooded her veins, even knowing that the male who chased her wouldn’t hurt her.
He’d just fuck her into the forest floor, taking the prize he’d won in their game.
I’d gone back to the beginning, wanting to start the story all over. I loved the harsh world of fantasy, relating to the beaten down but not broken women far more than the ones I tended to find in contemporary romance. I’d never gone to a normal high school where girls could interact with boys. I’d never gone to college and had a carefree life.
The mafia life was far more similar to the somewhat archaic worlds of fantasy, and I didn’t care to think about what that said about my life. “Are you reading a good part?” Calix asked, and I glanced over to find the door open and him leaning into the doorway.
His arms were crossed over his bare chest, his ankles crossed as his shoulder rested against it. The picture of casual, he watched a flush stain my cheeks as if he hadn’t ignored the locked door and let himself in anyway. “It’s all a good part,” I said, swallowing back my nerves at having him nearby. He was too far away to see into the tub and my nakedness beneath the surface, but that didn’t stop me from trying not to notice the way his crossed arms highlighted the rippling muscles of his abs and all his olive skin on display.
He moved into the room, coming closer until he erased the comfort I’d tried to convince myself of. He’d stripped out of his suit in the time I’d spent in the bath, the rippling muscles of his abdomen shifting as he walked toward me. Only a pair of dark boxer briefs covered any part of his body, leaving the lean, well-defined tone to every inch of his body open to my view.
“What are you doing?” I asked, snapping the book closed. Calix took it from my hands as he approached, tossing it onto the seat in the center of the too-large bathroom.
“What do you want me to be doing?” he asked, lowering himself to his knees beside the tub. Only above his sculpted chest stayed visible, and I winced for the harsh tile under his kneecaps.
“Getting out,” I said, the lie coming instinctively from my parted lips.
“Tsk tsk,” Calix said with a teasing lilt to his voice as his brow furrowed mockingly. He grabbed the bottle of shampoo I’d set on the floor beside the tub before getting in, squirting some into his hands and lathering them together a bit. “And here I was hoping you’d ride my face.”
“Calix!” I protested, the incredulous tone of my voice amusing even me. Nothing about this man should come as a surprise any longer.
“Lean forward,” he said as he laughed. I did as he instructed, trying not to moan when his gentle fingers massaged the shampoo into my scalp. It was foolish to take so much joy in the little things he did to take care of me, but I couldn’t help but lean into his touch.
“You don’t have to do this; you know?” I said, a breathy sigh escaping.
“You’re my wife. I take care of what’s mine,” he said, guiding me back to lower my head into the water. I had a brief moment of panic with his hand on my shoulder pressing me into the water.
It would be so easy for him to kill me, and if he truly had married me for my family name and the connections it would give him, then perhaps it would be the wise thing to do. Take my fortune through marriage, and then get rid of me so he would never have to worry about me stabbing him in his sleep.
I gripped the edge of the bathtub with both hands, shaking my head slightly as I fought back the fear for a moment.
Calix held my eyes from his place beside the tub, his features gentle with an understanding he shouldn’t have had. He shouldn’t have known me well enough to know what I feared in that moment.
Drowning seemed like a terrible way to go. I’d have rather he suffocated me while I slept so I didn’t see it coming.
“Trust me, λουλούδι μου. Close your eyes,” he said, pressing slightly harder at my shoulders. I heaved in a deep breath, slowly letting him lower me into the water. My face stayed above the surface as my hair splayed out around me, and I arched my neck back so that Calix could cup handfuls of water to rinse over the very tip of my forehead and wash away the shampoo.
When he was finished, he allowed me to sit up in the tub once more. My breathing was deep and unsteady as he caught my cheek in his palm. Turning my head to face him, he leaned his nude upper body over the edge of the tub and captured my mouth with his.
Gentle. Soothing. He teased my lips with the barest whisper of a caress, as if he thought the slightest pressure might break me. “I married you. Not your name,” he murmured, the words spoken against my mouth. He kissed me once more, keeping his silver eyes open and intent on mine. “Not even death could save you from me now.”
His lips touched mine once again, the pressure of his mouth growing more insistent as I opened for him. His tongue swept inside cautiously, as if he feared I may be luring him into a trap so I could bite it off.
It was tempting in a way, but the gentle way he touched me chased away the thoughts of violence. The thoughts of retribution that demanded I make him pay for the way he’d used me.
I just couldn’t bring myself to care in that moment, and I definitely couldn’t bring myself to care when he pulled back and proceeded to work conditioner through the ends of my hair.
I was so fucking screwed.
