His shudder of pleasure skimmed across my skin. “Good girl,” he rasped.
I fought the gag rising and instead pressed my lips to his. His hands fumbled with the material of my dress, but I moved around so he could access anywhere but the weapon. When he pulled back to help me out of it, I quickly wrapped my fingers around the knife and yanked it free.
This was my moment. But he must have seen it coming. He grabbed my wrist in a tight grip and laughed.
“If you think I’mthatstupid, you know nothing about me.”
Thanks to all the classes he required me to take, I was stronger than I’d ever been. The knife glinted just inches from his throat—inches—and still impossibly far. His grip was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. I didn’t know how I was going to get my hand free.
Instead of stressing over that, I drove my knee up into his crotch. He let out a howl of pain, and I was able to roll awayfrom him. I crouched on the floor as I watched him get up from the bed.
My heart slammed into my ribs as a snarl ripped free from his throat and he shook out his limbs. I knew he was a fighter, but I’d never experienced it. I should have prepared better. I should have gone to watch him fight.
“Do you honestly think you’re the first woman to learn just who I am?”
This time, the nerves set in. I wasn’t going to make it out alive. I wasn’t going to survive this. I’d signed up for the impossible. Why did I think I was capable of doing such a thing?
He rushed across the space between us, and I gasped. He was quicker than he looked, too. Somehow, I managed to scramble away from him, but I knew it was only a matter of time. He was going to get me, and he was going to kill me. He was going to use Jane, if not sell her first. I was doomed.
“Ivan taught you how to fight? One of your new friends gift you this pretty weapon?”
My breath came out in quick gasps, and terror set into my bones.
“Maybe I should return the favor,” he whispered. “Send him something of yours next time. A finger? A tongue? Something small but meaningful.”
I stopped breathing.
Something in my eyes must have changed because he laughed low and slow, and instead of continuing to crouch and go after me, he straightened and rolled his shoulders back. “There she is… the girl that knows she won’t win.”
Desperation was a funny thing, though. I knew I wasn’t going to win, but I was desperate enough to try anything, especially now that he thought he’d won. I rushed across the space between us and slammed the knife into his chest. It wasn’t the right area for him to die quickly, but it was something. It wasanything,and I needed as much on my side as I could get.
The shock on Donovan’s face was almost beautiful. A picture-perfect moment.
“You—”
“I know I won’t win,” I whispered, voice shaking, “but you sure as hell aren’t walking out of this room untouched.”
His shock twisted into murderous rage.
“You little?—”
He lunged. But pain dragged him sideways, his balance off. He slammed into the dresser with a grunt, one hand clawing at the knife, the other reaching toward me like he could wring my neck from across the room. I needed to get out of here, but not before he was dead. I had to make sure he died.
I forced myself to allow my shoulders to droop. “I—I, that’s a lot of blood.”
He grinned as if he was realizing something I knew nothing about. “Never seen this much blood before?” It was running down his chest in thin rivers.
I shook my head and forced a sob. “No. I haven’t. I didn’t want to do this…”
“We can fix this,” Donovan sagged against the furnitureagainst the wall. “We can come back from this. I just need to know who convinced you to do this, okay?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head as I backed into the opposite wall.
“You’re not a killer, Poppy,” he rasped. He dragged himself upright, bracing a bloody hand on the dresser. “You can’t evenlookat what you’ve done.”
My shoulders trembled. My breath hitched. I let tears pool in my eyes as I blinked at him. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
His hand wrapped around the knife hilt as if he was about to pull it free and throw it across the room.
