My pulse kicks hard.
“Say it,” he murmurs.
“S-Say what?”
“Say what you want.”
His voice is velvet and command.
“Say it like you mean it. Like your body’s already screaming it. Like you’re not ashamed of wanting more than soft hands and pretty promises.”
My lips tremble.
I look at myself in the mirror.
At the girl I don’t recognise—but want to become.
And I whisper, “I want to be ruined.”
The second I say it, the air shifts.
Dax goes completely still.
And then?—
A sound.
Low.
Dark.
Hungry.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re going to kill me.”
His hand slides up my spine—slow, reverent—until it cups the back of my neck.
Not tight. Not rough.
Just there.
Claiming.
“You don’t get to say things like that to a man like me, Cassandra,” he breathes. “Not unless you mean them.”
“I do.”
“Don’t lie to me, butterfly. I won’t be gentle just because you flinch pretty.”
“I want all of it,” I whisper. “Whatever this is.”
He drags his thumb along my jaw, forcing my head back just slightly.
“You don’t want sweet,” he says. “You want to feel something real. Something raw. You want someone to hold you down and see you.”
My breath leaves me in a shaky rush.
“I’m not a good man, Cassandra.”
