“No, you just withhold the whole truth.” His disgust is palpable in the sliver of space between our bodies.
“It was necessary.”
“That, Rapunzel, is a load of horseshit.” Wren’s free hand lands with a resounding slap against the stone, so close to my head that I flinch at the impact. “This is how it will work.” Wren slips his hand under my skirts. The contact with my bare flesh sends a wicked jolt of heat skidding through my body. “You’re mine to punish for hiding in your precious tower when you could have stopped John from taking everything from me.” He squeezes my thigh hard enough to pull a gasp from me. “First, I’ll make you weep. Then, I’ll make you beg. When you’re good and broken—” His fingers move higher, rougher. “I’ll fuck you until you can’t tell the difference between pleasure and pain.” He grazes along my slit, searing me through the flimsy barrier of my plain, white undergarment. “Until you won’t remember a time when I wasn’t inside of you.”
His words are supposed to frighten me. They’re supposed to disgust me—instead, my womb clenches, and desire pools between my thighs.
He kicks my legs apart and settles his large body in the space he created. The bulge of his erection digs into me when he grinds his hips against mine.
“Don’t, Wren. Please. Not like this.” My plea is weak and half-hearted because I want this—his hands on me. His breath on my skin. His lips on mine.
I’ve ached for it. Wept for it. In the dark when it was my hands between my legs.
But never like this, with hatred in his heart and venom on his lips.
There’s no mercy in Wren’s ruthless hands. He studies my reaction as he runs his fingers along the waistband of my underwear. His eyes, so full of animosity, miss nothing, and when he dives lower, skin on skin, I whisper out a whimper. His full lips curl in a cruel grin and he leans in so close that his warm breath fans my ear. “Calm yourself, Rapunzel. You don’t get my cock today.” He slides his hand lower still, his fingers parting me. Spreading me open. “That, you have to earn.”
His touch is shocking. Brutal. It stokes a burning need to rock my hips against his hand to chase the brutal tease. He can’t know how many nights I’ve done this exact thing to myself, imagining it was him. That he was with me in my bed, pleasuring me. But now he’s real. Flesh and bone. Full of rage. His commanding fingers torment me with a wicked blend of pleasure and pain when they find my clit. Making slow circles over it. Flicking it. Pinching it. Owning it—owning me.
Soaked with need, I slick his path when he pushes a single thick finger inside me. His invasion lifts me on my tiptoes to evade the intrusion. A gasp escapes me, and I squeeze my eyes closed.
“Keep your fucking eyes open, Rapunzel. I want you looking at me.”
My eyes obey before my mind rebels. His fury is frightening and thrilling as he inches in farther. He pushes deeper, stretching me wider. My lips part, with all the words I should have said years ago sitting silent on my tongue.
“That’s it,” he rasps. “Beg me to stop, like the coward you are.”
But notthosewords.
I shake my head because it hurts so good. The delicious burn. The stretch. I never want it to end as he thrusts his finger in and out, a slow drive that knocks the breath out of me.
“I am no coward, Wren.” I lean forward and feather my lips over his. He keeps his eyes open as the world melts away.My first kiss. But he pulls away and disappointment flays me raw. “I have sacrificed everything for Rygard.” I grind against his hand. “Do your worst.” Then I impale myself down to his last knuckle.
“Tempt the devil and get burned by the fires of hell.” He digs up into me without mercy. Slides in a second, widening me, ripping a cry from me as he pumps them again and again. I gasp and whimper, soaking his hand. “This is only my fingers, Rapunzel. Imagine how my cock will fill you.”
Wren’s words send a spark skidding across every nerve. He threatened to tear apart the tower stone by stone. Instead, he’s ripping me apart thrust by thrust. Caged between the solid wall and his powerful body, I’ve never been a more willing prisoner. And when I rock my hips in time to the punch of his fingers, our gazes remain locked. Mine, full of wonder as new and exquisite sensations roll through me. Wren’s, full of disgust as he commands me.
“Wren, please.” I don’t know what I need. More of everything he’s already doing as he pushes my body along a sword’s edge.
“Come for me, Rapunzel.” There’s a note of challenge in his tone and an arrogant gleam in his eyes. “Prove you’re not afraid.”
He repositions his hand, hitting a new spot. Rubs me just right. Slides in and out, with each punishing plunge bringing me higher. I’m lost in him—and I shatter.
Shatter into a thousand points of brilliant light. “Oh God, Wren.”
Wren rewards me with one last vicious thrust of his hand, then lingers in me a moment longer as suppressed desire of the past twenty-four years drains from me. When he withdraws his fingers, I’m left empty and cold. He still has me by the wrists with my arms pinned above my head, and his face—his beautiful face—is etched with such loathing. “Tell me how it feels, Rapunzel.”
I blink at his demand, my labored breaths hiccupping in my throat as I fight for a calm that’s out of reach. “Howwhatfeels?”
“My hate,” he growls. “Because that’s what I gave you.”
“Wren…”
Before I can say more, he yanks his hand from my underwear. Swipes fingers across my cheek, smearing a trail of wet in their wake.
He grabs hold of my right hand and lays it flat on his chest, where I find his heart pounding a frantic beat against his sternum. “Each beat feeds my need for vengeance. Against you. Against John.” The king’s name is poison on his tongue. “I trusted you. Loved you. And you turned your back on me. For that, I’m going to turn your entire world to rot and ruin.”
Wren spits at my feet, then throws my hand away. He reaches into the pocket of his jerkin and tosses something old and crumbled at me. When I bend to pick it up, my cry echoes around us. I dart my gaze back to his face and I know in this moment I’ve lost him.
