She's shaking now. I can feel it. But she doesn't back down, doesn't look away. "Then use me. That's what I'm here for, right? To be your toy. Your revenge."
The words are meant to wound, and they do. But then they light a fire in my blood that I've been trying to ignore since she walked into that throne room.
"Is that what you think this is?" My left hand comes up to cup her throat, feeling her pulse race beneath my scarred palm. I wonder what she thinks of that. She seems to be trying not to look at it, that's for damn sure. "Revenge?"
"Isn't it?" She's breathing hard now, her chest rising and falling. "You want to punish me for leaving."
I pause, thinking. Because the truth is too complicated. Too raw. "I want you to understand what you did to us," I growl.
"Then show me." She looks up at me, and there's something wild in her eyes. Challenge. "Go ahead, Kade. Show me.Fuckme. That's what you want, isn't it? That's why you put this collar on me."
She's daring me to be the monster she thinks I've become.
My thumb traces the line of her jaw. Her skin is so soft against mine. For years, I've dreamed of touching her like this. Years of night fantasies and waking nightmares, all centered on the girl who slipped through my fingers.
"Get on your knees," I say, my voice rough.
I expect her to at least show ahairof that defiance that made me fall in love with her.
Instead, she drops. Just like that. Sinks to her knees on the plush pink carpet of the room we built for her and looks up at me with those green eyes. Then those perfect lips part and she says the last fucking thing I expect.
"Okay."
She's on her knees in front of me, hands folded demurely in her lap, chin tilted up in defiance even as she submits. The collar catches the light, and my cock is so hard it hurts,strainingagainst my jeans like it's trying to get to her.
This is what I wanted. What I demanded. Her on her knees, ready to pay the price for leaving us.
So why do I feel likeI'mthe one being fucking punished here?
"Use me," she says again, and there's something broken in her voice. "I'm here. I'm yours. Just like the contract says."
I can't tell if it's a challenge anymore or if there's actually some part of her that wants this too.
So I let myself linger in the gray for a minute. The delusion that she actually wants me, that she sees me as more than trailer trash when every bit of evidence she's given since she left—including afucking lettersigned with a lipstick print, agoodbye kiss—points exactly to the contrary.
My hands are shaking. Actually fucking shaking as I reach for my belt.
This is what I wanted. This is the plan. Take her, claim her, make her understand exactly what it means to belong to the Kings.
But as I look down at her, I can't fucking do it.
I can't take her like this. Can't let our first time be a moment born from rage and desperation and years of festering, bitter agony.
Because despite everything, despite the hate I've cultivated and the walls I've built as carefully as I've built everything else in my damn life, despiteevery fucking attemptto turn love and devotion into something poisonous…
I still want our first time to mean something.
And I fuckinghatethat.
"Get up," I growl, my voice rough.
She blinks, confusion flickering across her face. "What?"
"I said get up." I step back, putting distance between us because if I stay this close I don't know what I'll do. "This isn't...fuck. Just get up."
She rises slowly, clearly uncertain. Like she thinks I'm going to snap and do something even worse. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I." I turn away from her, running my hands through my hair. The burn scar on my arm throbs, and I press my palm against it hard enough to hurt.
