“And what now?”
“Now you get to decide what you want to do. You can stay with me, and I’ll bring you to the Keep, or you can leave. I’ll bring you to a safe place, give you some food to start out, but you’ll be on your own.”
“You’d let me go?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His massive shoulders shrug. “I don’t even understand it myself. I had every intention of getting you pregnant, then returning to the Keep, because at that point, I was sure you’d agree to any of the conditions I set for you. I wanted you to hate me, because I was so sure that would breed a survivor. A child that could overcome the cruel world it was brought into. And everything was going according to plan. I was fucking you like a damn rabbit, and it was easy to get you to hate me, but I just…I don’t know. I couldn’t go through with it.”
“I don’t think it was as easy as you thought it was.” I bow my head and suck in a breath. “Because while I have strong feelings for you, they aren’t hate. Not even close.”
“What are they, then?”
God, how do I tell him? How do I put into words my shame?
“I don’t know, but it scares me. I feel so much for you, all the time, and not just because of the sex. I crave your darkness. Your grim core. No matter how long I live, I’ll never meet another man like you. You’re an addiction. I’ll never want another.”
He wastes no time, pressing his mouth to mine and forcing me back onto the bed. He’s brutal chaos. A collision of lust and depravity.
I’ll never be able to change his dark nature. Nor do I want to.
His hands are caked with grime. As much as I want him, I can’t tolerate the thought of him touching me covered in someone else’s gore, so I press hard against his chest.
His brow arcs in surprise.
“Shower!”
He smirks. “Oh, right…”
We strip off our clothes and enter the stream of warm water, our mouths seeking bare flesh.
He pushes me against the wall so hard, my breath vacates my lungs. Then he falls to his knees to devour me.
He makes the horrible world fall away. The death and the dead. The uncertainty of tomorrow. Every step across the city.
His tongue gets straight to business, working my clit with the stamina of a raging bull.
I fall apart with a scream, grabbing his hair to keep him in place as I grind my pussy against his greedy mouth. His filthy, dirty mouth.
Before I can recover, he’s on his feet, grabbing me, turning me, and forcing my chest and head against the shower wall.
He breaches me cold and hard and without mercy, fucking me relentlessly as his hand keeps me pressed in place.
“I have another secret,”he grinds, driving into me with brutal force.
Oh, God…
“It’s dirty and dark and something so wrong, it might truly make you hate me.”
His fingers find my clit, which he rubs in rhythm with his thrusts.
I don’t know how much more I can handle. Not just the overwhelming sensations of him fucking me. The secrets. The confessions.
“It’s worse than the twenty blocks I made you walk. Worse than the torture.”
I’m teetering on the edge, so fucking close to release that all I can see are stars.