Chapter 54 The price of your skin
CHAPTER 54: The price of your skin
Silas
The moment my words tore across the room like a bullet, the air in the room didn't just shift; it plummeted, the temperature dropping as if a loaded gun had just been cocked and aimed at the silence.
Vera stiffened visibly, going white as a sheet. She took a few steps back, stumbling a bit as her legs hit the edge of the mattress.
“Well, Vera?” I sneered. “What are you willing to offer me that could possibly interest—move me to be generous to you?”
She began to stutter, the words catching in her throat like jagged glass.
“Silas... you can't... I don't understand,” she whispered, her voice trembling with an uncomfortable, raw shock.
I let out a low, mocking huff.
“Why that reaction, Vera?” I taunted, watching the frantic pulse at the base of her swan-like neck. “You were the one who just claimed you would do anything. Does your devotion to your sister have a limit, or is it only your body that carries an exclusive price tag?”
I was aware that I was crossing a line here. I was insulting her—a woman…my wife.
But I didn't care. I was too far consumed by my demons.
She swallowed hard, her hands fisted in the bedding.
“But you... you said before we got married. You said you would not touch me. No intimacy. You said this was a business arrangement. A contract.”
I shrugged a careless shoulder.
“The dynamics have changed, Vera,” I countered, my voice dropping an octave as I took a slow, predatory step toward her. “We don't play by the rule anymore…at least not totally.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don't understand—”
I cut her off sharply.
“And before you accuse me of going against our agreement, remember this. You set the ball rolling the moment I found out the filth you were hiding. From now onwards, the rules are what I say they are. I am the one who holds the pen now.”
I closed the distance between us, watching her shrink back as I loomed over her.
I didn't stop until I had her trapped, hovering over her as she leaned back on the edge of the bed.
The scent of her skin filled my senses, making something bitter and wicked well up inside me.
“This shouldn't be a novelty to you,” I sneered, my shadow swallowing her whole. “Exchanging something to get what you want? It's your specialty,” I spat through clenched teeth. “You've proven quite adept at bartering with the truth; why should your body be any different?”
“You hate me,” she suddenly blurted out, her voice rising in a desperate, frantic pitch.
“And you’re still my wife,” I shot back.
Her eyes widened slightly.
“Silas, you're angry. I understand it. I know you loathe the very sight of me. How can you even think of this?” she asked, genuinely confused. “How can you stand to touch someone you despise?"
I laughed. A harsh mirthless sound that bounced off the walls.
I leaned down further, my chest nearly brushing hers, my gaze dropping to her trembling, swollen lips.
But she didn't recoil this time.
“I don't need to like you to touch you, Vera,” I rasped, the words thick with the dark, heavy weight of my own hypocrisy.
For even now, her proximity and the picture she painted were pushing me to lower her to the bed and reenact that dream. But to my everlasting credit, I didn't indulge.
“Desire doesn't require affection. If anything, the hate makes it cleaner. Besides, it's just another debt to be collected.”
“Then later you'll hate yourself for it, “she whispered, eyes glassy and shining. “And you’ll hate me more than you already do.”
I looked at her. My jaw tightened.
“Well, we do have to live with the consequences of our actions, no?” I growled slowly.
I was already stewing in my self-loathing already, might as well receive the gratification.
“What about…about Natalie?” she asked, hesitantly.
My brows drew in a frown.
“What does she have to do with this?”
She opened her mouth and closed it, hesitant to say what was on her mind.
“I mean I saw the two of you…that day—”
“The dinner… that night,” I cut in cleanly. “You’re so good at acting I believed you didn't care. Apparently, you're better at pretending.”
I believed that she didn't care about what she saw that night.
A wild theory jumped at me. It sounded far-fetched and ridiculous, but I just had to ask.
“Are you jealous?”
Her eyes widened, then she blinked one, twice, and again.
“I'm not,” she shook her head.
Something bitter cracked up my throat.
“I was thinking that she might not—”
“Whatever my relationship with Natalie, it's none of your fucking business,” I snapped.
She flinched.
Part of me, the part that still clung to my fading sense of morality, frowned at my words and actions…half expected her to recoil, to slap me, to reject the disgusting proposal.
Despite the gnawing, animalistic craving for her that made my blood burn, I didn't want to coerce or force her.
I wanted the Vera from my dream…the one whose desire mirrored mine.
I was pushing her, testing the edges of her desperation to see if she would break or bend.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” I rasped, my face hovering just inches from hers as the world outside the room ceased to exist. “Is your sister’s happiness worth the price of your skin?”
Heat suffused her face. She swallowed heavily, blinking as she held my gaze.
In the heated, suffocating tension of the room, I thought I saw something in her eyes… the Vera from my dream.
For a fleeting, heart-stopping second, I thought I saw it…a flicker of the same desire, I felt for her mirrored in the depths of her own eyes.
My breath caught slightly.
Her mouth parted, her breath hitching as she prepared to speak, the answer trembling on the tip of her tongue.
“I…”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound shattered the moment like a hammer to glass, echoing sharply through the heavy wood of the bedroom door.