“My soul?”
“Yes, your soul,” he practically purred. “That little glowing light inside you that shines so bright. A soul is a dangerous thing to have in this part of the woods.” Titus suddenly surged toward me, and the distance between us was gone in a blink. He held my chin in his crushing grip, examining me with dark curiosity banked in his eyes. Behind that, there was a quiet hunger that had the little hairs on my neck standing up.
“Why?” I barely understood what he was saying. The words were difficult to parse when he was pressed against me like he was, holding me so possessively my mind was shattering apart with wild fantasies.
“Your soul may as well be a fire with a juicy pig roasting over the open flames in a barren forest filled with starving souls.” He ran his thumb over my lower lip, and his gaze dropped to watch me lap up the flavor his skin left on mine. “It’s coming to eat you, little sister. And I’m almost inclined to claim you for myself before that happens.”
“What’scoming to eat me?”
He pulled me in so close that his mouth was a kiss away. “A monster. The kind that’s ten times worse than me.”
“What’s worse than you, Titus?”
He clutched my arms and dragged me against him until there wasn’t anything left between us but the frantic hammering of our hearts tangling together. “You have no fuckin’ idea.”
He spoke in a primal growl that had me quivering against him. “Then tell me so I have an idea, dammit.”
My plan was working. Slowly, I was wiggling the truth out of Titus, piece by piece. Eventually, I’d solve this puzzle. So long as it didn’t kill me first. Somehow, I wasn’t afraid. Titus made me feel safe. I wasn’t sure why, but I got the feeling that he was wrong. Whatever monster he was talking about couldn’t be worse than him.
I smiled and sagged into him, showing that I was too tired to fight or argue. “Not if there’s nothing left for him to eat after you’re through with me.”
Another growl, this one even more feral than the last, rolled from his throat as his hands dropped to my hips and jerked me against the erection straining through his jeans. “You have no idea how dangerous of a game you’re playing.”
“I know you’re trying to scare me. It’s to protect me, isn’t it?”
His one white eye flickered, like a shadow passing over it. “No. That would suggest that you’re an asset. You’re not. You’re just a liability. A distraction.”
“From what?”
“I’ll tell you…on two conditions. Number one, you don’t tell your mother. She’ll run her mouth, and it will blow my cover.”
I nodded. “And number two? Let me guess, I let you fuck me?”
“Let’s rephrase that, little lamb. The second condition is that I get to play with you in whatever way I want. Right now, I want to pluck that sweet little cherry of yours.”
“I…Okay…”
He searched my face, looking for any trace of resentment or unwillingness. When he registered that I was practically shivering in anticipation, his lips crashed down over mine in a bruising kiss.
The force of him nearly knocked me off my feet. I threw my arms around his neck to steady myself.
Gripping the backs of my thighs, he picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he walked me behind the truck he was working on. With one hand supporting my ass, he used the other to wrench open the tailgate before practically tossing me into the back.
He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, his eyes darkening with hunger. “Lift your skirt up, little sister. Show me that virgin pussy.”
Breath catching, I pulled up my skirt and flashed him my panties, which were still wet from the mess he’d made of them at the breakfast table. My heart ricocheted off my ribs when he lifted his shirt to reveal tight abdominal muscles covered with a fine dusting of dark hair. Tucked into the waistband of his jeans was a knife. He pulled it out, then grabbed my ankle and slid me to the edge of the truck bed so my legs dangled over the side.
I froze as he slid the knife under the fabric of my panties, cutting them off. He shoved the knife—along with my destroyed panties—into his back pocket.
My pulse skyrocketed and my mind fumbled with what the fuck was about to unfold. Here I was, in a garage with the door wide open, laying in the back of an old Ford truck while Titus stood over me with his domineering posture and his mean eyes running over my bare thighs. It was almost like a dream, only this was really happening.
I reached for him, allowing my legs to fall open.
He jammed a hand in his other back pocket, withdrawing his wallet and pulling out a foil packet from one of the flaps. He moved to tear it open with his teeth, but I shook my head, stopping him. “I’m on birth control.”
There was a shift in the air the moment his fingers laced through mine. He continued his exploration, grazing my arms with a touch void of all the edge he’d had before. “Fuck me. You’re going to be what sends me straight to Hell. I just know it.”
I tentatively raised my fingers and ran them over his burn scar, tracing each bump and ridge. “Seems like you’ve already been there and back.”
