Page 89 of The Vow

Again, she moved closer, her chest almost brushing mine. It was like she didn’t realize she was stepping straight into the jaws of a lion. Into the grip of a beast.

The growl that loosed from my chest was nothing short of feral as I dropped my head to hers and latched my hand around the column of her throat. “Because I want you like a criminal. Like a madman. I want you like a psychopath who’s only been fixated on one woman for the past fifteen years who’s now standing within reach,” I said savagely, watching her blush steal down her cheeks and under my palm. “Because I want my wife. I want to possess her. I want to put my ring back on her finger and my cock back in her cunt and never let her go.”

My whispered vulgarities lifted goose bumps over her skin, each one calling to the promise of my touch. Meanwhile, my cock was so stiff, it was hard to see straight, let alone think rationally.

I tore my hand away from her and stepped back before I couldn’t.

“Go, Robber,” I croaked, my chest heaving.

I should’ve had another bead put in before coming for her. Ishould’ve…incapacitated myself the moment I knew I’d been returning that girl to my brothers-in-laws’ garage in exchange for my wife.

Wordlessly, Robyn inched away, and I let out the breath locked in the cage of my chest. My lip twitched and then curled when she turned and crossed back through my bedroom.

Good.

She needed to go…and I needed a cold shower and an hour with my fist.

Except she didn’t leave.

My jaw crashed to the floor as she reached the bedroom door, and instead of walking through it, the lock clicked into place like a bullet lodging in the chamber of a gun.

“Locking yourself in the lion’s den is never a smart idea, Robber.”

“I came here for the truth, and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

“Didn’t I just confirm it?” I quipped, my eyes hunting her like prey as she walked back to her original position by the window. “Belmont demanded I replace the sex trafficking side business we’d cost Shazad. So, I lied about giving him your network of spies, and I lied to you so you’d make it believable.”

Her head nodded in slow undulations, rolling along the waves of a current that she refused to let sweep her away. “Yes, I do know that,” she said and began to make her way back toward me. “That’s not the truth I’m asking for.”

I’d felt gunshots less than I did the force and velocity of her request embedding itself in my chest. Yet in the same manner, adrenaline staved off the physical pain for me to demand, “What are you asking for then, Robber?”

I couldn’t believe it. I needed to hear the words. I needed to hear the exact words to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

She stopped, and I stopped breathing.

“I want to know what happened that night, Damon. I want to know why you disappeared. I want to know why you said you loved me, why you married me, and then why you betrayed me with Sandrine.”

The fury that came over me was so intense, I didn’t realize I’d moved until I was in front of her. Until her chin was between my fingers and her face held up to mine.

How was it that nothing about her had changed for me? All these years and the brightness of her eyes, the softness of her skin, the peach color of her plump lips…it all looked just the same to me, as though her visage hadn’t been etched into my memory but into stone.

“And if the truth comes at a price?” I rumbled, feeling the rhythm of my pulse turn ragged and charged like a thoroughbred stomping at the gate.At the chance to let the truth finally run free.

Her chin lifted. “And if I’m willing to pay?”

Another shudder went through me. “Are you if the price is that you’ll never be free of me? That I’ll never stop fighting for you and to be yours again.” Her lips parted on a soft inhale, and my head dipped, about to kiss her because I couldn’t stop myself—almost.Pausing on the edge of temptation, I murmured, “And that you’ll always be mine, Robber. As ever. Forever.”

A price or a promise, the interpretation was hers.

Slowly, I pulled back, a sound of pain bubbling from my chest. Our warm breaths tangled like knotted threads, making it harder for me to move away. Her gaze rose to mine, her irises the color of ivy wet from a storm. Determined but uncertain.

“Tell me.” Her words detonated with honesty and simplicity and shook my entire world.

Fuck.

I nodded slowly and forced myself to take a step back.

Her proximity messed with my mind, and there was no way I could get through this with her being in arm’s reach. It was a miracle I’d survived the night she’d climbed on my lap—a miracle she’d fled from the room before seeing me grab my cock and come at the first touch.

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