A threat.
“You want to play dangerous?”he snarls.“With me?”
“I want to see what you do,” I whisper, eyes dropping to the blade between us.“When you stop pretending, you don’t want to fuck me.”
His grip on my wrist tightens.Hard.Metal bites into my skin.
Then… he does something worse.
He slides his knife free.
Quiet.
Slow.
Sinful.
The sound of steel leaving its sheath shivers up the back of my neck.He holds it low, angled away, not threatening, but not safe either.The blade gleams between us, catching the light like it knows the precise type of moment this is.
Royal doesn’t raise it.He doesn’t cut me.He just lets me see it.A line of cold silver between want and warning.
“This is why I don’t touch you,” he growls.“Because when I want something, Becki, I don’t take it gently.”
I swallow hard, pulse pounding so loud he must hear it.
“Then don’t be gentle,” I whisper.
His eyes go black.
He presses the flat of the blade, cold, unyielding steel, to the wall beside my head.An inch from my throat.
Not touching me.But close enough I feel the cold hum.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re provoking,” he says, voice trembling with restraint.But grinning like a jackal.
“I know exactly,” I breathe.“You use knives because they’re untraceable.Quiet.Intimate.You want to feel the pulse before you make your cut.”
He shudders.That tiny, involuntary tremor he thought he’d buried.
“You think I’m scared of your knife?”I ask.
His hand tightens around the handle.His breath hits my cheek.
“No,” he growls.“You’re scared of how much you want me to make you bleed.”
Before I can answer, before either of us crosses the point of no return, he jerks the blade away, slams it back into its sheath, and steps back like he’s been scorched.
“This can’t happen,” he forces out.
“It already is,” I whisper.
His fists clench.His jaw works.His control fractures in real time.Then he storms out, slamming the door so hard the cot rattles.The silence he leaves behind vibrates with everything that almost happened, the knife between us, the breath on my lips, the hunger he couldn’t hide.
I slide down the wall, shaking.
Royal thinks he walked away for my safety.
But we both know the truth.He didn’t put that knife between us to scare me.He put it there to stop himself from using it.And that means he’s closer to breaking than ever.And I’m close to breaking out.
