Page 69 of Pretty Dark Vows

He hasn’t said a word, and there’s no expression on his face at all. Unlike in the daylight, when his eyes appear pale and icy, under cover of darkness they’ve become twin black holes, darker than the night that surrounds us, but they stare down at me with an intensity that makes my breath hitch.

Then the knife moves, and I stop breathing completely.

He drags it over my skin, lightly enough that in other circumstances it might almost be erotic.

Fear rises up inside me as the cool metal knife tip moves downward from my throat and over my upper chest, but even as my pulse flutters and my breath catches, something hot spreads through me—something that feels far too much like arousal.

Logan moves the blade to one side, running the knife over my chest in deliberate movements, and I gasp as cool air suddenly rushes across my breasts.

Holy shit. He’s slicing my cami open. Shredding it.

As the delicate fabric falls away, he slides the blade lower, over my stomach and hips.

My muscles quiver, my instincts going haywire. My skin tingles, and all my senses suddenly become razor sharp, centered on the deadly metal as my entire world narrows to the smooth, precise, controlled movements Logan makes with it.

The long slices.

The swift strokes.

The pressure that drags across my skin and splits the thin cotton of my shorts over and over. He cuts through both my shorts and panties with the precision of a surgeon, methodical and controlled, slicing the garments off my body without ever breaking my skin.

Finally, I’m naked, bare before him in the moonlight and lying in a puddle of my shredded clothing. My nipples have tightened into stiff points, and I swallow hard as his gaze finds mine again in the darkness.

“What are you doing to me?” I breathe.

He stiffens slightly, as if I had shouted the words instead of whispered them. Then he shakes his head, a tortured expression passing over his shadowy features. “What areyoudoing tome?”

He brings the knife back up to my chest, right between my breasts, those dark eyes of his boring into me. My breath catches, the entire world seeming to stand still.

“Tell me to stop, wildcat.”

Logan’s voice is rough. Strained. It sounds like he’s wrestling with something inside himself, almost like hewantsme to tell him to stop. Like he wants Dante to rush in and pull him away from me like the big, tattooed man did last time we had an encounter.

But Dante doesn’t come.

And for some reason that I can’t quite understand, I don’t say anything.

I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the expanse below. I know I should back away from the ledge, return to solid ground where it’s safe… but I can’t. Some part of me needs to know what Logan is going to do. Some part of melikesthe mingled fear and arousal that floods my veins every time he’s close to me.

And as insane as it is, I can’t fight it.

Logan stays perfectly still, his gaze locked on me, waiting to see if I’ll respond. I don’t, and the silence stretches between us, loaded and heavy.

Then he cuts. Just once.

Logan draws a careful line between my breasts, the blade so sharp that it breaks my skin before the sensation sets in. When my nerve endings finally register the bite of pain, it draws a hiss from my lips, and Logan freezes. Then, like a rubber band pulled too taut until it finally snaps, he pulls his hand back abruptly, bursting to his feet and backing away from the bed, staring at me the whole time.

His eyes dip just once, burning with cold fire as they take in the mark he made, and then he’s gone.

I stare after him, shock still keeping me frozen in place.

He didn’t even close the door. He just… left.

“What the fuck?”

The words come out on a shaky breath, and I reach up to touch the space between my breasts. The cut is delicate and shallow, but it’s oozing blood, and even in the darkness, I can see the dark stain on my fingertips when I pull them away.

Goosebumps scatter over my skin, and I feel almost like I’m coming out of a dream, as if that entire interaction with Logan never really happened. Shaking my head, I sit up on the mattress, scooting back to lean against the headboard amidst the pieces of my destroyed sleep outfit. I reach over quickly and turn on the small lamp by the side of the bed, and as light floods the room, I suck in a breath.

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