Page 35 of A Touch of Dark
He doesn’t so much as flinch at the vitriol I spit his way. Instead, he reaches out, his fingers outstretched. I stiffen, choking on the air, but he grabs something from the nightstand near my bed. A handkerchief, one of his.
“Here.” He drags the cloth against my cheek without warning. Without permission.
Sputtering, I cringe out of his reach. “Did you forget you’re supposed to be blind?” I croak, eyeing his blindfold for any concealed slits.
“I can hear your breathing,” he explains, letting the cloth fall onto the sheets. Sighing, he stands back and inclines his head toward the bedframe. “And I was listening from the other room. You haven’t shifted much from the position I left you in.”
Listening? Just how long has he been here, lurking outside my bedroom? I swallow hard and grasp the end of a sheet, dragging it over me as if the thin material can protect against his perception.
“Is that how you get by?” I wonder, annoyed that I sound more curious than mocking. “Remembering people’s body positions?”
He tilts his head. “Well, I do paint the human body for a living. At least that’s how the saying goes, isn’t it?”
“Because youdon’tpaint the human body for a living,” I finish for him. Daddy used another word to describe his true profession. “You’re acriminal.”
“Drink the coffee slowly,” he tells me while withdrawing an object from the pocket of his slacks: the cane. Each delicate tap echoes as he heads for the door.
“Wait.” Why I stop him, I don’t know. His jaw clenches amid the snapping of teeth as he pauses near the doorway. “You said something last night.” My heart squeezes as my brain sluggishly attempts to remember. What was it? “Something about my birthday,” I add, fumbling with the words as they race from my mouth. “The wine. You knew. How?”
A simple shrugging of his shoulders and Damien becomes unreadable. “I don’t remember anything of the sort, Ms. Thorne. Enjoy the rest of your day—”
“Wait.” I manage to haul myself upright, using the pillow as a crutch. The words on the tip of my tongue don’t leave it easily, almost as if every cell in my body resists the notion I stupidly propose. “So…so, when do we start?”
“Excuse me?” God, he sounds even more unnerving when he’s confused. His voice dips an octave and his accent sharpens, honing every word into crisp syllables.
“When do we start?” I try to sound casual and fail. It would help if I didn’t feel like roadkill. Or if this man weren’t lying to me, withholding secrets about my own damn life.
I’ll get to that, eventually. Until then…
“Painting me,” I say, forging on. “I remember your terms.” They were crystal clear: paralyzed by a drug, naked, and helpless at his mercy.
“And you agree to them?”
Do I? The ominous tingle running down my spine says no.
“If Idid,” I begin before he can say anything cutting, “when would we start?”
“This isn’t a game.”
I flinch. He’s using that whip-like voice again, and my hungover brain struggles to impress upon me one key detail: He’s a stranger in my house, able to navigate it with uncanny ease, especially for a blind man. He looks far too comfortable, lording over my master bedroom, which suddenly feels like a closet. I should be calling Daddy. The police. Anyone.
Not pushing his buttons, morbidly eager to learn more. He claims to know me, but I don’t even have that luxury.
“I’m not playing.” My voice almost sounds stable enough to back that statement. “So were you lying when you offered your services, or were you serious?”
I’m shivering. Only now am I aware of how my teeth are chattering. My blouse feels like tissue paper, ineffective against how my nipples have stiffened. Biology is betraying me in the worst possible way. Gritting my teeth, I drag the sheet farther over me.
He notices. The corner of his mouth twitches as if he’s aware of everything I desperately seek to hide. The resulting expression isn’t quite a smile or a frown. It’s more terrifying than either.
It’s curious.
“Yes or no,” he demands, squaring his stance until he dominates my doorway and there’s no way past him. I’m trapped. Physically. Figuratively. “I don’t play with possibilities.”
Suddenly, my lips feel dry enough that I run my tongue across them. Dehydrated flesh grates on the moist surface like sandpaper. Unfortunately, the pain doesn’t reboot my common sense.
“Yes,” I blurt as my stomach flips. “I’ll do it. So, when do we start?”
“I should let you recover from last night,” he says as if the idea just occurred to him.
