we shared a sensual moment makes sense, but I am still so very ashamed of it.”
“Why does it make sense?” Why was he asking? That was a much more sensible question.
“You are sexy from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. You're strong and wonderfully
masculine facial features leave me breathless. I completely melt every time I gaze into you incredibly
golden brown eyes. Your broad shoulders, rock-solid muscular chest and abdomen are perfectly
scintillating. You muscle bulging arms and legs are quite fabulous. A glimpse of your butt never fails to
leave me hot and bothered. All in all you are a scrumptious visual feast. I won’t deny that you have
inspired me to conjure many naughty thoughts and erotic fantasies over the past few years. But I’ve
decided that I have been stupid for far too long, It really sucks to admit that I ever allowed myself to
pretend you are my boyfriend.”
“I am…”
“Quite a bit, in fact,” she cut him off, “I am thankful you finally forced me to see the truth. If you
hadn’t I would still be getting up every day to live as if we are an exclusive item when in reality there is
and was never anything going on between us.”
He stopped, but she kept walking. She did not even notice he was no longer walking beside her. “I
am your mate.” How could she say that there was nothing between them?
“I have decided to get on with my life.”
“How so?”
“I am ready for less talk and more action.” She continued to walk. “I am going to start dating.”
“What?”
She stopped and turned to face him. “I. Am. Going. To. Start. Dating!”
“Oh no you are not!”
She lifted her chin. “Yes, I am. Accept it or not. I don’t care. Not even a tiny bit. My personal life is
none of your business.”
“You will not be pleased with the outcome.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I would never threaten you.”
“What about my date? Are you going to beat him up?”
“I would not need to lift a finger to destroy Ca...oh, damn it at all.” He should’ve kept his mouth
shut.
“Carl.” Narrowing her gaze, she smiled at him as if celebrating her victory. “His name is Carl.”
“It does not matter who it is.” He placed his palms on her shoulders and leaned down near her ear. “I
will destroy any male that even considers making an attempt to take you away from me,” he whispered.
“I am not your possession. Don’t get into my head to eavesdrop or snoop around ever again. Stay
away from me.”
“I don’t secretly lurk around in your mind waiting to overhear your conversations with other
people.”
Reaching up behind his neck she grabbed a fist full of his hair and pulled him down so that he felt
the warmth of her breath on his ear. “Seen or unseen do you really think you can linger in my mind or
come into the boutique or anywhere else I happen to be and remain unnoticed by me? Stay out of my life,
Nikolas!” She released him and turned to walk away.
“You knew I was there witnessing it and yet you encouraged him?” He did not even try to hide his
hostility. Clearly, her reckless behavior proved she needed to hear and feel it.
“Why not? Why would you care?” She stopped. Rage burned in her sightless eyes as she whirled
around face him. “I knew you were eavesdropping while you were still at home farting around on your
stupid computer.”
“That is ridiculous.” He closed the distance between them and took her into his arms. “I do not fart
around and my computer is not stupid.” It amazed him how quickly she could cause him to switch from
wanting to kill a man to needing to kiss her. He unexpectedly came to the conclusion that he had been
wrong all along. It was a shocking revelation, but he knew it was true. They belonged together.
“In fact, while doing your best to stay away from me, you do it more often than not. I do give my
most heartfelt apology to your computer. It is an entirely innocent victim. I should not have called it a
hurtful name.”
Many thoughts were spinning around in his mind. He had to mend the damage he had done to their
relationship. There had to be a way to convince her to give him another chance. They belonged together
no matter what the future had in store for them. Passion swept into him and got the best of him. He pulled
her into his arms and kissed her. When she struggled to get away he lifted his head and released her. She
slapped him across the face.
“I am sorry, little one. I should not have...”
“That’s right. You should not have kissed me.”
“I love you. I was going to say that…”
“Stop it!” She took a few steps away from him, but then she stopped and turned around slowly in a
complete circle. He could tell by the frown on her face that she was disoriented.
“Connect with me.”
Anguish clearly visible in her eyes, she shook her head. “I cannot do this with you anymore. Go
home, Nikolas. Please, I’m begging you to stay away from me. It’s too much.”
“I know your sense of direction is mixed-up right now. It is my fault. I understand why you do not
want to merge your mind with mine to see, but I cannot leave you out here stranded. Give me your hand.
Let me help you get home. I will leave as soon as you walk through your door.” He took a deep breath
and released it slowly. He knew what she needed from him, but he hated the idea of it. “And I give you
my word that I will stay away from you unless you are in danger or you want me to come to you.”
It took a few minutes before she nodded and extended her hand to him. He took it. “We need to turn
around.”
When they started to walk he began to think about her threat to date Carl. She kept quiet. He didn’t
try to start another conversation with her. He couldn’t think of a reason for her to want to talk to him. The
silence gave him too much time to meditate on the notion of her wanting to see Carl again. He had never
felt such a profound sense of jealousy. It was odd. Why would he be jealous of a human male? Was it
possible to lose her to a human? Yes and no. He could lose her heart to a human, but he would never
allow one to take off with her. He would caution the man to stay away from her. He would kill the idiot if
he continued to chase after her, but it would not solve anything if she already gave her heart to the guy.
“Would you like to spend the weekend at beach?” he asked.
“With you?” She laughed. “At your house?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “No. Didn’t you just vow to leave me alone?”
“You haven’t walked through the door yet. We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Us. The future. Our future.”
“There would be no point to it. We have no future together. After giving it some serious thought I
have come to the sobering conclusion that you were always right about us not being together. There is not
even a tiny part of me that wants anything to do with you. I am looking forward to walking through my
door.”
“I was wrong.”
“What?” she asked,
“I behaved like an ass long before and after we made love. I made our lives miserable. I am so sorry
for hurting you. I love you, Brianna. Come back home with me.”
She shook her h
ead. “No way.”
“Start over with me. Give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“You are not the only man that I’ve had sex with. I wouldn’t put up with being harassed by the men
before you and I won’t tolerate you bothering me. We had sex one time. It does not give you a right to
badger me.”
He caught her arm and spun her around to face him. “We didn’t have sex. It was much more. We
made love for the first time.”
She lifted her chin as if to glare at him, but he knew she couldn’t see him. “It was exceptional until
you called it your most terrible mistake and threw me out of your bed. It made me realize that being with
you was not special. Calling it mediocre sex would be an exaggeration, but I will admit that it wasn’t the
worst I have ever had.”
With a wave of his hand he generated a cloaking spell around them to prevent anyone from seeing
them, and then he scooped her up and shifted to her front door. He moved so quickly that he set her down
and placed her hand on her doorknob before she had a chance to comprehend what he had done. “You are
home now.”
He backed away and waited for her to go inside. She had every right to be infuriated and lash out at
him. He had allowed his self-doubts to rule him and cause him to put her through hell for years. He
deserved every cruel word she launched out at him, but he knew better than give her an opportunity to
hurl anymore. It would’ve been disastrous if he didn’t stop it. She didn’t deserve his anger. He would
have lost control if he tried to listen to her compare him to other men.
As if she intended to give him one last look, she glanced over her shoulder. It seemed odd since she
was blind. Then, for one breathtaking second, he expected her to touch his mind to get a peek at him.
“You won’t come back here, right?”
Rejection was a ruthless bitch. His heart sank. She had no desire to link her mind with his for any
reason. She declined to do it for the same reason he ached for her to do it. It had been a profoundly
intimate experience for them from the first night they met. “Not unless your life is in jeopardy or you ask
me to come to you.”
As far as he could tell she was content with their treaty. Without saying another word she faced the
door and opened it. At the same time he suddenly panicked. He was an idiot. It was a terrible
arrangement. What if she never wanted to see him again? What if she never gave him another chance?
Inundated by several mind-boggling blows of fear and desperation, it took every ounce of his strength to
stand back and watch her go inside and close the door.
~Five~
AT FIRST CARL was shocked and disappointed when he discovered that Brianna was blind, but then he
quickly saw it as a colossal blessing in disguise. God had not made her blind to chastise or insult him.
The reason for her condition made perfect sense. Rather than an imperfection or a blemish ruining her
value by staining her beauty it was a clear indication that God had judged him worthy of receiving the
best he had to offer a son. There could never be a purer woman than one unable to gaze upon a man’s
body and to be enticed by it.
The Great Almighty had withheld her vision to force her to be more dependent on her husband for
her day to day living. Doing so had naturally made her prone to become submissive to his authority over
her. God in all his immeasurable wisdom had fashioned men in his likeness to give them complete
supremacy over women, but that power came with great responsibility. Godly men were charged with the
burden of preventing the weaker sex from being seduced by the many temptations Satan had at his
disposal to lure them into his kingdom of darkness.
A man’s essential function in a marriage was never intended for the weak hearted. Training her to be
a prayerful and saintly wife was the best way to make it possible for her to resist the urge to indulge in the
wicked pleasures of the flesh. He could not grow weary or let his guard down for even a moment. He had
to be vigilant and strict at all times. Taking a break from his responsibilities as her head could be his
bride’s never-ending damnation. He had to be fully dedicated to the task of keeping his wife on the
narrow path that led to salvation.
Brianna’s inability to see meant that he would never be forced to bruise or scar her soft, delicate skin
to keep her clean. There would never be a reason to use harsh methods of punishment to prevent her from
allowing her eyes to wander and lust after other men.
While making his way down the sidewalk toward the insurance company where he had worked for
the past five years, he began to think about his mother. He didn’t understand why is mattered to him, but
he truly wished she had survived long enough to witness his long sought after and fought for victory over
the curse his father had forced him to suffer. If ever she had any hope of believing in his power to
overcome wickedness it would be seeing the beauty of his virtuous wife. Of course it would never
happen. She would dig deep to search for and inevitably find a flaw in him just to prove he was just as
hopeless of a case as his biological father.
“What are you doing out here, Carl?” Angela, the office secretary stood in front of him with her
hands on her hips and her accusing eyes narrowed. “Your four o-clock has been waiting for well over
twenty minutes.”
“I went out to make a coffee run.” He tried to walk by her to go inside, but she grabbed onto his
sleeve and positioned herself between him and the door to prevent him from do so. “Move aside.”
“Next time you had better let me know that you are leaving and when you plan to return.”
“You do not have any authority over me. I do not answer to you for anything.” With his fists
clenched at his sides, so that his nails dug deep into his palms, he struggled to push down and hide the
anger and frustration caused by her maltreatment of him. It was not easy. The woman was a smutty cynic
who bragged about being an atheist as if it made her better and smarter than any devote believer. She
called herself a freethinker, but the truth was that she so caught up in sin that Satan controlled her every
thought and dictated her every action. “Get out of my way, Angela.”
“There is no need to be rude. I was not trying to imply that I hold a position of authority over you.
My job is to handle the schedules and appointments, but I cannot do it if I do not know when you leave
the office and when you plan to return.”
He knew better than to let his guard down or to be fooled by her deceitful tongue. Keeping track of
the schedules and appointments meant nothing to her. All that truly mattered to her was forcing him to
wander off the path of virtue and onto the path that led to the Lake of Everlasting Flames. “You are a
stumbling block produced and sent by the adversary of morality to cause me to slip up, but I will never
surrender or fall victim to any of your attempts to rob me of my glory.”
Just as his mother had done so many times in the past, she lifted her hand and pointed her finger in
his face. “You’re a nut job. Your head is warped beyond repair. Someone should have locked your ass up
in a mental institution a long time ago. You do not belong here. You do not have any business being free
to roam the streets of this city or any other for that matt
er.”
It happened before he had any hope of stopping himself. He snapped. The ability to remain civil had
been sucked right out of him. He swatted her hand to the side with enough force to create an audible
smack, and then grabbing her shoulders he pushed her back against the door. “You! A sinner! You have
no right to pass judgment on me! You do not deserve to breathe the same air that passes through my
lungs. God hates you and all of your kind with a passion. He will send someone to strike you down one
day. Just you wait and see. He will withhold his mercy from you and all the other dirty, rancid, self-
indulgent, disease spreading whores that wander the streets in search of men to destroy!”
“Let go of me!”
The more she struggled to break free from his grip the harder it became to rein in his hatred and lust
for her. It had reached a point that he did not even want to try. With a terrible roaring noise echoing in his
head, he ached to spill her blood, to watch her life slowly flow from her body. “You cannot force me to
kill you. You will never have the ability to seduce me to the point of losing control and fucking you.”
As if she finally saw him for the powerful, unfeeling animal his mother had raised up to take revenge
on immoral women her eyes widened and she went completely still. “What are you talking about?”
He savored the fear in her eyes, the horror staring back at him. No. This was not what he wanted. If
he killed her all that he had gained would be lost. He would forfeit his salvation. A moment of erotic
pleasure, of feeling the scintillating release he had only ever been able to experience when his dick was
buried deep inside the cold body of a lifeless, silent woman was not an adequate reward to convince him
to give up his entitlement to be Brianna’s ruler.
“Let go!” She began to struggle again.
Even though he had never been able to maintain an erection while looking upon a living woman’s
naked body he knew it would happen with Brianna because their union was sanctified by God. He would
experience a pleasure many times greater than he had ever felt before when her warm body was wrapped
tightly around his dick and her soft whispers and moans replaced the silence. “The sight of you alive and
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