A couple of inches to the right, and the bullet would’ve torn through her skull.
The entire flight home, I shook with rage, and that was before I knew the rest of it. Before I knew how many times she came close to dying. If she hadn’t woken up to hear the locks getting picked, or jumped out of the way of that pickup truck… Fuck, if she’d just so much as breathed louder in that coat closet, she wouldn’t be here today.
I wouldn’t be holding her, tasting her.
I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have found the other half of my soul.
Her head falls back under the brutal pressure of my lips, her hands clutching desperately at my arms, and I know I should slow down, be gentle, but I can’t. Whatever restraint I’d possessed is gone, burned to ash in the fires of my fury, decimated by my fear for her.
There was so little of what she told me in Konstantin’s report, so many suspicious blanks in the police files he’d pulled for me. No mention of the two masked men in her mother’s apartment, nothing about the attempted hit-and-runs. Even her emails to the journalists, the ones Konstantin’s hackers found in her sent folder, don’t appear to have reached their destination, as if someone has had her messages blocked or marked as spam. And then there are all the erased and damaged tapes, likely those that would’ve served as proof of the other attempts on her life.
Someone went to enormous trouble to kill her mother and cover their tracks, someone with massive resources, and the fact that I don’t know who it is eats at me like acid.
Breathing hard, I wrench my mouth away from hers and meet her dazed gaze. “You’re not leaving.”
I wasn’t going to let her go before, but now that I know she’s in mortal danger, I will do whatever it takes to keep her here. I will literally chain her to me if I have to.
She blinks up at me, her kiss-swollen lips parting. “But—”
“But nothing. I don’t want to hear it again. You’re mine now, understand?” My voice is harsh, guttural. I’m frightening her, I can see it, but I can’t stop myself, can’t place the beast back on its leash.
She opens her mouth to respond, but I don’t let her. Roughly, I slide my hand into her hair and grip a fistful, holding her still as I swoop in for another deep, marauding kiss. There’s something dark and twisted in the way I need her, in this compulsion I feel to claim her. My hunger for her emanates from the deepest, most savage part of me, one that I’ve done my best to hide from her and from the world at large… one that my sister saw that awful winter night, much to her detriment.
Chloe is right to be wary of me.
I’m not a normal, gentle man.
Civilization is just another suit I wear.
She stiffens under my assault at first, but after a moment, her body softens against mine, her arms wrapping around my neck as she gives in to the heated need consuming us. She embraces me as I fuck her with my tongue and eat at her soft, lush lips, holds on to me as I bear her down to the table, my hands roaming greedily over her hips, her ribcage, the small, plump mounds of her breasts.
Her dress is in the way, so I tear it open at the bodice, too impatient to figure out all the hooks and zippers. She’s braless underneath, and her breasts spill into my hands, round and perfect, tipped by gorgeous brown nipples. My mouth waters at the sight, and I bend my head, sucking one into my mouth. It tastes like salt and berries, like everything I’ve never known I craved, and as she arches into me with a gasping cry, her small hands fisting in my hair, I know I’ll never get enough of her.
It’s utterly impossible.
My cock is so hard it hurts, my balls tight against my body as I switch my focus to the other nipple, sucking it in deep before biting down with calculated force. She cries out again, her nails digging into my skull, and I soothe the sting with gentle strokes of my tongue before delivering another bite of pain.
She’s panting now, writhing underneath me, and I know I was right about her, about our compatibility in this regard. The beast in me calls to its mirror image in her, heightening the dark chemistry between us. Pain and pleasure, violence and lust—they’ve coexisted since the dawn of time, feeding on one another, forming a sensual symphony like no other.
A symphony that I intend to play with her.
Releasing her nipple, I move down her body, ripping her dress in half along the way. It was a fine, pretty dress, but I’ll buy her another. I’ll buy her everything, take care of her every need. She’ll never go hungry, will never know want again. Because she’s mine now, her body and her mind, her secrets and her fears and her desires.