Dark Desire

Chapter Fourteen

When I turned around, Mariana was standing on the center of my room, flushing when her eyes grazed over my bed. "I—er, would you like some breakfast?"

I shook my head, standing still a few feet away from the closed door. Unsure what to do, I tucked my hands in the pocket of my sweats and cleared my throat. "What is it you need, Mariana?"

"I...I want to talk to you about something." She started. "Confess, actually."

My brows shoot up. "Go ahead."

She chuckled nervously and squared her shoulders. "Um, okay, well..." She was awfully nervous and I had no intention of closing the space between us but my feet betrayed me. Mariana's light eyes flickered at my sudden movement, yet she made no effort to step back. She didn't even flinch. She only tucked a piece of her front hair behind her ear before she continued, "I guess you don't have to know this but then I realized that it's only fair if you are keeping me fed and sheltered and everything that I...I was engaged."

My entirety froze. Engaged? Why? And what had happened for her not to be anymore? I had a lot of questions but nothing came out of my mouth when it opened a fraction.

Mariana sighed and smoothly ran a hand through her thick hair. "I ran away from my wedding that night those two drunkards found me in the bar and brought me here."

She was about to be married? I had no words. I could barely process it.

"Will you say something?" Mariana's voice was a soft plea. I dared to inch closer to her though I didn't know why.

"I'm sorry...that you went through that and everything I've put you through."

"There's nothing to be sorry for." She exhaled. "Every decision I made right from the moment I fled the Church and to me staying here, I did so willingly. I left my life in Vernazza because I wanted to and I'm choosing to be here right now, to follow your rules, to be yours for the taking, because I want to."

I was absolutely sure I stopped breathing until Mariana stepped closer and her sweet Vanilla scent hit my nose like a soft breeze. I was immediately hit with the need to burry my face in her neck. I made the effort to step back but Mariana gripped the fabric of my shirt, pulling me back.

"Don't." She frowned, her eyes directed on the hand grasping my shirt for dear life. "Stop pulling back. It's absurd at this point."

I could only manage to croak, "No, it's not."

"It is." She countered. "It is when I want you now."

I shook my head instantly, almost too fast. "You don't mean that, Mariana. Don't—"

"Just stop saying no for one second!" She exclaimed, closing the space between us and stealing the damn breath out of me. Her eyes were gleaming now, bright with determination, with a soft yet vibrant kind of understanding. "Stop fighting it, please. I'm not scared. I haven't been since I saw you crying in your bathroom that night."

I couldn't breathe. My fists were so tight at my side I was absolutely sure I was bleeding. "You're making a mistake, Mariana."

She groaned, softly. "You don't know that. I don't know that. But I'm willing to find out...however dark it turns out. I didn't leave my perfect, comfortable life only to be pampered yet again and locked up like a damsel in distress." She slid her warm palms across my chest and left them there, right to were my heart was thumping so loud.

My own lids fell shut, and then I allowed myself to marvel at the pureness of it all. The tenderness of her touch, her comforting smell, the way she was standing so close like she'd never leave and that this could be...this could something that could work.

"Why?" There were so many questions attached to that word, ones I couldn't articulate, yet when Mariana's soft brown eyes peered at me over her lashes, it seemed she understood all of them.

"Because, Wolff, I know how this works..." She patted my chest and her hand reached up, curling her fingers through my hair. I bit my lip to suppress a moan. "And this, too. I understood every word you could only afford to write. Every thought. Every fantasy. And I—God, I loved them."

Every word...

Every thought...

Every fantasy...

All those monstrous part of me. I've poured them all in paper. Published them under a different name, a different face only to avoid the judgment and hatred that would come from them. They weren't about love or relationships or anything good that people searched for in books. They were dark, vicious words of lust and violence and relentless hunger. How could she...how could she have possibly loved them?