This is the part of me that still hasn’t shaken off the chains. The part of me that flinched when Zane kicked that door open. The part of me that cried when Phoenix tackled Myles to the ground and held him there, like a beast finally contained.
Because even as I lay there, trembling and aching, mywrists sore from his grip and my thighs shaking from the force of him…
I wanted more.
God. What the hell is wrong with me?
Pressing my thighs together, my pulse thrums low and hot as shame curls through me. Shame… and something that tastes like surrender.
I remember the way he held me down on the floor. Not a bed. Not a mattress. The hard, unforgiving floor of his bedroom, my clothes torn off, his breath ragged as he shoved into me like he couldn’t bear the space between our bodies.
He made me feel like I was the only thing that could silence the chaos in his head. Took what he needed, and I gave willingly.
The stretch of him filling me, his hand firm around my throat. His voice—guttural as he whispered filth and promises I shouldn’t crave.
“Say it. Say you’re mine.”
I did. And I fully meant it.
Even now, every bruise he left feels like a vow. A reminder of the way he devoured me with heat and raw desperation.
And I loved it.
God help me, Ilovedit.
I know he was out of control. I do. But I was drunk on it. Onhim. On the way his hands held me down with bruising force. The steady squeeze around my throat, the way he groaned when I clenched around him.
And what scares me more than him trying to hurt me again is how badly I still want him to. It’s not like before. Not like the men who took me and used me and broke me.
This isn’t that.
This isn’t Bennett. Or Derek, or any of the flesh traders who trained me to surrender to people I didn’t want.
Myles doesn’t see me as something ruined or sanctified. He sees me as something he has to have. To simply possess. To own and mark as his.
And maybe… maybe I want that too.
Is that really so wrong?
To be wanted? To be kept by them—by Myles, by Zane and Phoenix.
No one ever let me have that on my own terms. To make the decision for myself. But I want them. I want them to claim me. To keep me so fiercely that they’d guard me like hounds.
It’s not simply because I’m scared Bennett might still find me. No. What I’ve found here over the past six weeks is something far more potent.
The crowbar hits the ground with a heavy metallic crack, jarring me from the thought.
Myles stands there, breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he’s still mid-fight. His knuckles are raw and bleeding, his sharp jaw clenched like he’s trying to hold something in.
And I hate how much I want to go to him. To be the thing that calms him down. Or be claimed all over again. Would he take all of that intensity out on me? Ravage me again and leave me floating on air?
The door creaks behind me. I flinch, snapping my gaze from the window.
Phoenix stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms folded. His hair is slicked back to perfection as always, sleeves of his shirt pushed up, revealing the tattoos climbing his thick forearms.
He lifts an eyebrow like he’s been watching me for a while.
I sit up straighter, trying to act like I wasn’t spying on Myles.
