Page 45 of Reaper's Desire

"You don't need to know that yet."

"Jesus Christ." She laughs shortly. "You really don't trust me at all, do you?"

"It's not about trust. It's about security."

"Security," she repeats, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Is that what we're calling this? Because it feels a lot like you treating me like a prisoner."

I glare at her. "You're not a prisoner. You agreed to come with me."

"Because you told me people were trying to kill me! What was I supposed to do, stay in Santorini and wait for one of these supposed killers to show up? Or head on to Rome and see if they found me there?"

"You made the right choice," I say, keeping my voice level. "Staying, or not coming with me, would have gotten you killed."

"And going with you is so much safer?"

"Yes."

She stares at me for a long moment, her green eyes searching my face for some reassurance I'm not sure I can give her. "I don't believe you," she says finally. "I think you're just as dangerous as whoever's hunting me. Maybe more."

She's right, of course. But I can't tell her that. "Believe what you want," I say instead. "Just stay close and do what I tell you."

"God, you're insufferable." She turns away from me, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and running her fingers through it. "Do you ever stop being so... controlled? So cold? Wait, don't answer that. I know what you were like in Ibiza." She shoots me a pointed look. "You were unhinged there. So this…"

"This is the real me," I bite out. "Get used to it."

"That must be exhausting."

"It keeps me alive."

"And is that all you care about? Staying alive?" She turns back to face me, and there's something challenging in her expression now that makes my pulse quicken despite my best efforts to remain detached. "It doesn't look like much of a life."

I should shut this down. But instead, I hear myself say, "What would you know about my life?"

"Nothing. Because you won't tell me anything." She takes a step closer, and I force myself not to back away. "You won't tell me who you really are, or why you're helping me, or what you want from me. You just bark orders and expect me to follow them like some kind of obedient dog."

"Do you want me to put you on a leash?" My abdomen contracts at the thought, my cock twitching. I've never thought of myself as someone particularly kinky, but the vision of Isabelle in a collar, on her knees, a leash wrapped around my fist while I drag her mouth to my cock, has me suddenly hardening. "I'm trying to keep you alive."

"By dragging me through airports and shitty hotels and refusing to let me have any say in what happens next?" Her voice rises. "I'm not a child, Julian. I'm a grown woman who's perfectly capable of making her own decisions."

"Your decisions are what got you into this mess."

The words come out harsher than I intended, and I see her flinch. But she doesn't back down. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're reckless. Impulsive. You ran off to Ibiza without telling anyone where you were going, partied in nightclubs where anyone could have grabbed you, with no care for your own well-being or security. You don't know anything about real life."

Her eyes go wide. "Fuck you." She spits it out, her voice suddenly venomous. "You don't know anything about why I left New York. You don't know what it's like to be suffocated by expectations and family obligations and a stepmother who looks at you like you're something she scraped off her shoe."

"You're right. I don't know." I cross my arms over my chest, keeping the distance between us, even though the lust coiling in my gut is screaming at me to close it. "But I know that yourchoices have consequences. And right now, those consequences include a contract on your life."

"A contract you still haven't explained." She moves closer again, and this time I do take a step back. "Who ordered it? Why? And how do you know about it?"

"I told you—I have connections."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer you're getting." I've repeated that over and over, but she looks as unimpressed by it as the first time I said it.

She laughs again, that same bitter sound. "You know what I think? I think you're lying to me. I think you know a lot more about this than you're saying, and you're keeping me in the dark because it's easier to control me that way."