[Excerpt]

“Don’t.” I shook my head, refusing to meet his gaze. Instead I watched his fingers dance along my arm as they traced over the thin lines of the tattoo.

“Don’t what?” His voice was a sultry purr that unnerved me.

“Issie?” He was closer now, so near that his breath whispered over my cheek. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t… pretend.” My eyes closed against what I was starting to feel. I didn’t want him to see; didn’t want him to know just how much I wanted this to be real.

Pathetically desperate that we both wanted the same thing.

“I don’t need to be serviced. I don’t want that from you.”

I didn’t want that to be part of our bargain.

I didn’t want pity.

Damien stilled. A heartbeat later, I sensed the shift; a radiating, furious tension crashed over me like a tidal wave over jagged rocks. His fingers, tender and gentle just moments before, now flexed and encircled my wrist, tightening until my bones ached. The pain made me gasp, and though I didn’t pull away, it compelled me to look up.

I was met with swirling, angry heat in those eyes of his. His pupils were little more than thin slits slashing through a pool of molten gold, reminding me again of what he really was.

“I do not pretend.” The words came from him in a slow, low snarl; not the caress that his voice had just been.

“You’re the one pretending, Isadora.”