Hush (Black Lotus #3) Read Free Page A

just my taste in your mouth, but I can’t let myself be that selfish with you right now. I won’t be able to control myself, and I’ll just hurt you.”
    Getting out of bed, I go to start the bath before returning to her.
    “Give me your hands,” I tell her and then help her onto her feet. “Lift your arms.”
    Moving slowly, I undress her, careful not to hurt her. When I have her naked in front of me, I quickly remove my clothes and then walk her to the bathroom. I step into the tub first and then hold on to her as I help her into the water. She sits between my legs, leaning back against my chest with a grimace of pain.
    Her body is hard to look at. The bruises are enough to get my blood boiling. It coils my gut in a retching of turbulent emotions. There’s a serrated bite mark on her left breast that I didn’t notice last night when I showered her.
    “What?” she questions, looking up at me. “What’s wrong?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Your body tensed up.”
    “I’m sorry . . . I just . . .” I start, trying for gentle words.
    “What?”
    But gentle doesn’t come easy for me, so I go with honest. “I want to take all these marks away. All the ones that aren’t from me.”
    “I’ll always be marked by someone else’s touch. I always have been.”
    “I’d give anything to take them away,” I tell her, knowing now that the scars on her back and wrists came at the hands of her foster dad.
    “You can’t make me into something I’m not, you know?”
    “You’re not my charity case, if that’s what you’re inferring,” I snap with irritation.
    “Was I ever? Even in the beginning?”
    “No. You were never a woman I pitied.”
    “If not pity, then what?”
    “There’s no easy answer. I don’t understand you or your reasoning for all the shit you’ve done. All I do know is that I must be crazy for loving you, because dammit, I do love you. I’ve tried not to, I’ve fought it, but I can’t stop.”
    “But what about what you said last night? You still hate me?”
    “Yes.”
    She drops her eyes, but I bring her back to me, saying, “I love you, Elizabeth.”
    “Do you really?”
    “Of course I do. I’ve killed for you.”

HIS WORDS, HIS truth, they may haunt some people, but for my decrepit soul, they soothe. It’s true—he has killed for me—and I have also killed for him. I murdered Pike when I thought he killed Declan. And it’s also a murder that I wish every day I could take back. But I can’t. The only way I can have Pike is through my mind’s trickery.
    But aside from Pike, I was a split second away from killing Richard last night, and it would’ve been all for Declan. In a sick way, it was going to be my gift to him. To rid the world of the man who took my love’s mother. Declan wouldn’t let me pull the trigger though—he did it for himself, robbing me of the satisfaction. I wanted it selfishly, but if there was one kill Declan deserved, it was that one.
    Declan’s eyes dig into mine, and I know I’ve touched a nerve by questioning his love for me.
    “I’m sorry,” I tell him, running my hands over his, which are tensed around my neck.
    “I’ve never been anything but honest with you.”
    “I know. I didn’t mean to be dismissive of your words.”
    His grip loosens as he relaxes, resting his shoulders against the back of the tub.
    “I’m having a hard time processing everything,” I add.
    “Then talk to me. Don’t hold it in.”
    Declan made his feelings known last week when I read the file on my mother. He made it clear he wants me to deal with my feelings instead of hiding them and locking them away the way I’ve done my whole life. I owe him anything he asks of me because of everything I’ve done to him, but sometimes it’s just easier to go numb.
    “Maybe later. I’m still really tired from the pain pill.” But there won’t be a later. I can’t cut myself open like that for him because there’s nothing that will stop the blood gushing