Because he does.
I always knew I’d never have a choice in who I ended up with. My husband could have been a horrid creature of a man. I’d be lucky if they were even easy to look at. But it was always going to be someone like him.
I pause, searching his face, digesting how hauntingly beautiful he is.
Hayden doesn’t move. He just watches me, his grip still firm in my hair, his body still caging mine against the cold and moist ground. His breathing is steady, controlled, but I feel the tension in him. The heat rolling off his skin. The raw, restrained power barely leashed beneath his calm exterior.
I try to steady my own breath, but it’s useless. My chest rises and falls too fast, too unevenly, my body betraying me in ways I refuse to acknowledge. I am shaking, drenched in sweat from how quickly I ran, half-dressed, one bare foot sinking into the mud, my other aching where my shoe was ripped away in my desperate escape. But none of it matters.
Not when he’s looking at me like that.
Like I belong to him.
Like he’s already decided I am his.
A fresh surge of anger burns through me, white-hot and violent. I shove against his chest with all the force I can muster, but he doesn’t budge. He allows me to think I might have some control.
But I don’t.
His smirk is infuriating, that sharp curve of his lips, the glint of something predatory in his dark eyes. He likes this. He likes the fight, the struggle, the way I shake beneath him, but refuse to break.
I bare my teeth, my nails digging into his wrist. “You don’t own me,” I spit, even as I feel the lie in the words.
His lips brush against my jaw, a whisper of contact, a taunt more than a touch.
“Don’t I?”
My breath stutters. My stomach clenches. I hate him for the way my body reacts to him. For the way something hot and treacherous curls low in my belly.
I twist in his grasp, but it only makes him press closer, his palm sliding down my side, fingers tracing the ruined fabric clinging to my skin.
“You think this is about ownership?” His voice is rough and smooth all at once.
His thumb brushes the hollow of my throat, a barely-there pressure that sends my pulse hammering against his touch.
I swallow hard, my fingers curling into fists. “Isn’t it?”
His smirk fades, his expression turning dark.
“You’re alive because of me.”
The finality in his words is startling.
My stomach twists, revulsion and fury tangling in my chest. I wrench my head away, trying to wrench myself free, but his grip is unrelenting. The movement only makes my breath come faster, and it forces my body flush against his; the air between us is thick and charged with darkness.
His grip doesn’t just hold me, it claims me. His body is pressed so tightly against mine that I can feel everything, the hard planes of his chest on mine, the heat of him searing through the soaked fabric of my dress. And lower, God help me, I feel him there too. Thick and inexorable against the curve of my upper thigh, undeniable in its intent. A sharp gasp leaves my lips before I can stop it, and I hate myself for the way my body reacts, the way something deep in my stomach tightens at the confirmation of his arousal.
He exhales slowly, his breath hot against the shell of my ear, and when he speaks, his voice is nothing but dark satisfaction and quiet amusement. “Now tell me again,” he murmurs, hisfingers flexing over my ribs, daring me to deny what’s happening between us, “tell me how much you hate this.”
His breath is steady. Mine is ragged.
“I hate you,” I whisper, my voice trembling. I’m terrified I may have said I love it instead.
He laughs, lips brushing my wet skin.
And just when I think I might snap, he lets go.
I shake as I try to pull myself up, gasping, aching.
