He dragged that title out like a blade.
“Do you hear yourself? Desperate little thing. Shaking like a leaf when I am the one held on this uncomfortable tree. Such an unhinged man. Maybe the darling Anderson boy took this fantasy night and realized he needed it as a reality.”
He was…threatening me, daring me, telling me that he would flip this on me. That I would be fucking convicted for whatever dead body was buried in the fucking brush. And he knew…
Everyone would believe him over me.
My body betrayed me. Heat coiled low, ugly, and raw. I shoved my knee between his legs, pinning him there, needing him to feel it. I demanded that he knew I wasn’t weak, that he didn’t fucking own me.
But his eyes…fuck, his pale, golden eyes lit up as if I’d just given him exactly what he wanted all along.
“That’s it,” he breathed, tilting his head back against the bark, baring his throat to me even as my hand tightened further. It was comic fucking gold to see a goddamn snake tattoo wrapping around the thick ridges. “Take control. Go ahead and show me how much you hate me. What will you do to prove I don’t own you, Sunshine? And how badly will it hurt when you finally admit I do?”
I hated him. I fucking hated him.
I hated that my cock throbbed against the pressure of my jeans while he goaded me. Baited me like a fucking fishdesperate for any disgusting morsel it was given. I hated that the sound he made when my grip tightened wasn’t fear or pain. I hate that he groaned, low and guttural, vibrating straight into my skin.
“You don’t get to do this to me,” I ground out, my teeth gritted so hard I tasted blood.
I ripped his fucking mask off. Seeing what lay behind the smiling face. The person he held for everyone else in this stupid fucking town of delusion.
He looked nothing like his sister. His hair was so fucking dark it could have blended into the night.
No wonder you move like a fucking shadow.
His eyes were somehow even more potent without the mask on. They were an ethereal golden yellow, like a fucking werewolf when they were all lolled and dopey.
Pathetic.
Weak.
I refused to look anywhere else. I didn’t want to watch the smirk playing on his lips. I didn’t care about the piercings there. It was not playing through my head how the cold touch of metal felt on my back when he…
“You don’t get to make me?—”
“Hard for me?” he cut in, soft and lethal. His smile broke through the chokehold like he had all the air in the world. “You already are, Sunshine.”
My hand shook against his throat. I should’ve let go. I should’ve grabbed the shovel on the ground and bashed him upside the fucking head, then walked my ass to the police while he was still easy to hand over. But I didn’t.
Instead, I pressed harder, grinding my knee into his dick, needing him to be the one to gasp, to lose his composure, and break under my power. I needed him to give me an ounce of fucking control back.
Why can’t you just be like that pathetic bitch worried about a stupid rabbit? Or your fucking sister fussing over her makeup smudging?
But Carrington didn’t break. He leaned into it, grinding his dick into my knee, seeking friction while he spoke. His voice was hoarse but steady, laced with his usual venomous calm. “You wanna know the worst part for you?”
I narrowed my eyes, pushing his throat harder into the tree, and feeling his struggle to swallow under my palm. But he somehow still managed to speak. The words were more strangling than my hold.
“You fucking like it. You hate me, because you like wanting me.”
His words lit something feral in me. I pulled him forward, only to slam him harder against the bark, my hand still locked around his neck, and my free hand fisting in the sling on his torso.
I ripped it off.
Buttons popped, scattering in the dirt like shrapnel. His skin was hot beneath my palm, his chest rising with shallow, taunting breaths. The satchel fell to the dirt, and his eyes followed with the slightest bit of interest.
I used my foot to flip the bag into my hand, catching it to reveal a cheap plastic knife inside. This was likely used in the hunt, and it was odd that he would have reacted at all. I pocketed the cheap weapon nonetheless, focusing my attention back on Carrington.
“You think I like this?” I snarled, lifting my knee, pushing it painfully between his thighs until he grimaced. “You think I want you?”
