Page 53 of The Devil's Redemption

Hearing him speak, it feels as though I’ve been shot in the stomach.

“Which have you slept with?”

“Sasha, don’t. Don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answers to.”

Suddenly, I’m furious. I can feel hot, angry tears building in my eyes. I try to shove them down because I don’t want to come off like an unbalanced, jealous maniac. But it’s no use.

“Who?” I ask again.

“All of them,” he admits.

His words knock the wind out of me. My hand shoots to my chest as I try desperately to suck air into my lungs.

“Sasha, breathe,” he orders, taking my hand and pulling me over to the bed.

Inhale, exhale, Sasha. He had a life before you came into the picture. So did you.

After another moment, I’m finally able to catch my breath.

“Never in a million years did I think I would have any competition, let alone have to deal withfourof your ex-lovers. All of which still happen to be in your life.”

“They were no lovers of mine. They were merely a means to an end.”

“How oft—how many times?”

He closes his eyes and scratches his five o’clock shadow as he takes a deep breath.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Sasha.”

“How. Many. Times?” I demand.

I don’t know where this crazy bitch inside of me came from, but even I’m a little scared of her right now.

“A lot, okay?” Blade finally shouts.

I run my hands over my face, trying to snap myself out of the near-rage blackout that I can feel coming on. Turning toward me, he takes my hands in his and pins me with his stare.

“Listen to me, Sasha, right now. I’ve never wanted to be with anyone,ever, so when I had an itch I needed scratched? Yeah, I would fuck one of them. But that’s all it was: a quick, insignificant fuck. I’ve never had a meaningful sexual encounter with anyone until the first time I slept with you. And after that night behind the diner two years ago, it wasonlyyour face I saw whenever I was fucking someone else.”

This time, his words don’t feel like a sucker punch. They snap me out of whatever crazy spell I was under, and it’s replaced with a sense of possession that I’ve never felt before.

Before I know what’s happening, I lunge at Blade, knocking him backward onto the mattress. Gone are my feelings of insane jealousy. Gone is the desire to punch that bitch in her dumb mouth. I straddle Blade and work on unbuttoning his pants as I lean over, kissing him like it’s been years since the last time I was able to taste his decadent lips. The warmth that I felt earlier today has returned, only it’s more intense now.

Like a raging inferno.

I can only hope and pray that nothing gets in the way of my end goal. I can’t let my brain even begin to think about what happened to me, or else this will end here and now.

Blade’s arms come around me just as I release the button from the fabric of his jeans and pull his zipper down. Swiftly, he rolls to the side until I am on my back, and he is hovering over me.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

I love him for it, but at the same time, I can’t afford to stop and think.

“Please don’t ask me if I’m sure. Just fuck me. If I end up breaking after all is said and done, hold me tight, and never let me go.”

“Never, Sasha. I’ll never let you go.”

With a swift motion, he has my own jeans unbuttoned and he’s pulling them down my legs. Hopping off the bed, he takes the denim with him then parts with his own pants before crawling back on top of me.

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