This is the same man who left you locked in a room with your dead ex-boyfriend.
My mouth goes dry at the thought, but when I try to sit up, it's like my body doesn't want to listen to me. I'm stuck there beside him, and even though he's a horrible person, there's a lingering curiosity that keeps me there beside him. It wants to know more about him.
Maybe I could use it against him when this is all over.
If he's still living.
Not that I think he's going to be. Aiden is going to kill him for everything he's done.
Noah sighs and rolls onto his side, tucking an arm beneath his head. The other hand is still between us. His fingertips trace patterns on my arm.
I try not to focus on the way it feels, staring at the ceiling, sneaking a peek at him every now and then.
"I have family problems, if you hadn't already guessed that," he says, his tone low.
"Yeah, I think I got that. I mean, the others don't really talk about you."
He flinches like it hurts him. I wasn't expecting that. I thought he would've written his siblings and his cousin off when they turned against him. He seems like the kind to turn his back on them, to leave them out to dry, or to maybe get revenge when the time suits him.
Pain is unexpected.
I shift onto my side, copying his posture, studying the lines on his face and the gray strands in his hair. Those strands only seem to be getting more intense.
"Sometimes, I hear them talking about you, though. When they think everyone else is sleeping. They call you a bastard, but I think that means they miss you and care about you."
He scoffs. "I don't think you need to worry about what they really think about me. At the end of the day, they all made their choices, and I'm going to make mine."
"Which means you're going to be able to kill your own family?"
"They're not the highest on the list of priorities, but it's on there."
He keeps his words purposefully vague. It's clear he wants to talk, but he's still worried about saying too much.
Maybe he isn't going to kill me.
Yeah, right. Don't be stupid.
Like I told Hector, there are things worse than death.
Noah presses his lips into a thin line and shrugs. "I don't need to make my life more difficult right now by making them a priority."
"Well, to be fair, you were the one who made your own life more difficult when you kidnapped me, sold me, and then kidnapped me again."
He chuckles, the rough and low sound sending heat flooding through my body.
There's something attractive about the slight laugh. I can picture it sitting around a fire in the dead of winter, him reaching for me, pulling me into his lap...
It's been too long since I got laid.
Noah smirks and shakes his head, sitting up and moving to sit against the headboard, his long legs stretched in front of him. "You might have a point about that. It might not have been the best tactical move, but it's revealed more problems with my own people."
"That Robert guy?" I move to sit beside him, our shoulders only a couple of inches from pressing together.
Noah's mood becomes darker again. "You need to stay away from him. I mean it. If you listen to nothing else I say, then I need you to stay the fuck away from him."
"He must be pretty bad."
"You have no idea." Noah traces a finger along the inside of my thigh, down to where the stab wound is. "I could kill him for doing this to you."