Chapter 102: Courthouse Paperwork Is Polite

His words were a grenade. Heat slammed into me in a way I did not want. I could feel the electrical charge curve in my limbs—my muscles tightened, blood punched my ears, heat pooled where it should not. A traitorous, animal reaction tightened across my skin and pooled low in my belly. No. No. No. This is not what this is. My brain screamed. I had to remind myself what had happened. This man—this man—had taken someone’s life. He had arranged pain. He had given himself the license to end a life and call it devotion. And yet my body answered with the most humiliating trait—want. The wrongness of it was immediate and corrosive. I could almost hear the shame ooze from my pores. I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes until stars flashed. For a moment I couldn’t tell which sensation belonged to which truth. The physical coil of attraction I'd once known—warm, dangerous—or the well of dread that had nested where trust should be. For a wild, loathsome second I imagined throwing myself at hi