DarkInnocence Read Online Free PDF Page B

touch of anger mixed with
something unnamable.
    I nodded with what felt like my heart in my throat. He
walked over, picked it up. Dante clutched the fabric, his knuckles whitening from
the strain of holding it so tight. Three seconds went by before black wool
sailed through the air and landed on my stomach.
    “Get dressed,” he ordered.
    Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I sat up and held the
scratchy material over my naked body. My hands shook and my vision blurred.
“What?”
    “You heard me just fine.” His jaw tightened, relaxed and
then went hard again. “Put on the jacket, Hannah.”
    He didn’t want me. The shredded pieces of my dignity I’d
tentatively pieced together over the last few days scattered at his bare feet.

Chapter Three
     
    Hot tears rolled down my cheeks and blurred my vision. I
shrugged into the jacket without meeting Dante’s burning-hot gaze. Humiliated,
I scooted off his bed and clutched the jacket closed. I didn’t even bother with
my underwear. I went straight for the door.
    “Hannah,” Dante said in a soft voice, the one he used when I
was in the middle of a mental breakdown. At this very second, I hated him for
knowing me so well.
    I wiped the moisture from my cheeks and tried to brush past
him when he moved to block the door. He grabbed my arm, stopping me in my
tracks.
    I looked from his hand to his handsome, masculine face. His
touch, once comforting and safe, was now tarnished. His rejection made me feel
like the slut I’d become over the last few weeks. Disgust curled inside my
stomach. “Don’t touch me.”
    He let go immediately. No questions, no protests. My heart
shattered. One more rejection. If he’d truly wanted me, he wouldn’t have let
go. More tears filled my eyes as my battered soul broke a little bit more.
    “We need to talk about this, darlin’.”
    “Why? So you can tell me how much you don’t want me? I get
it. I threw myself at you and you’re not into it. Really, it’s fine.”
    I shook my head and hated the tears that refused to stop. I
hated the hard pit in my stomach. I hated myself for being so stupid. Dante was
fifteen years older than me—he probably viewed me as a child. His kid sister. I
wished the floor would open and swallow me whole.
    He followed me out into the hall, into the living room. I
barely saw the details. Brown couch. Large TV. Dark coffee table.
    “It’s not fine,” he growled. “Damn it. Will you stop a
minute and let me explain.”
    At the front door I paused for only the time it took to
twist open the knob. My heels click, click, clicked down the sidewalk. Yup.
Nails in a coffin. Dante, still in only his towel, stalked behind me.
    “Hannah, stop.” His deep voice boomed and drew the attention
of the kids playing in their front yard across the street.
    I opened my driver’s-side door, thankful I hadn’t locked it,
and slid inside.
    We had a brief wrestling match over the door. I pulled it
shut. He ripped it open. I glared and pushed at more tears. “What are you going
to do, force me to stay?”
    My words, carelessly thrown out there, resonated. We both
knew I’d been kidnapped, tortured and forced to run naked through a labyrinth
of haunted halls not long ago. Dante’s face darkened with frustration and I
knew he would never force me to do anything.
    He lifted his hands in the air, as if done with me, and
stepped back. “You want to go, then go.”
    One more thing I’d ruined in my life. I threw the car into
reverse, backed out and sped down the street in a squeal of tires. Through the
moisture filling my eyes, the road blurred.
    I didn’t try to slow down until I got onto the highway. I
pressed on the brake and the pedal squished all the way down without an ounce
of resistance. The car didn’t slow.
    “Shit.” I pumped the pedal harder, tried to build up
pressure as the manual Roy had made me read when I got my driver’s license
instructed.
    I gripped the steering wheel tightly enough for my knuckles
to