I needed to touch her. Heal her. Fuck her.
My arm bellowed as I delivered three in quick succession.
“Eighteen.”
“Nineteen.”
“Twenty!” Nila collapsed, her knees buckling. Her weight transferred entirely to the cuffs.
My arm fell by my side. I could barely stand. My lungs sucked in air as if I were dying; my heartbeat existed everywhere, vibrating in the plants around us, roaring in my ears.
One more.
Do it.
I looked to the camera hidden in the ferns. My father would watch this later and reprimand me for being affected. He would see the glaze in my eyes, the desire on my face. He would make me pay for not freezing her first. He would destroy all the warmth that now existed in my heart and take me back to the person I hated.
That was my future.
But this was our present.
This wasours.
I struck. Hard. Too hard. Too fucking hard. My mind couldn’t free itself from things Nila would never understand. Her world was black and white. Betrayal versus love. Truth versus deception.
My world was different. So very, very different.
“Twenty-one!” Nila let go of her frayed self-control. Sobs broke through her lips, tears cascading down ghost-white cheeks. “Please—no more. Stop.” She tried to stand but couldn’t find the strength. “Please! No—I can’t—”
Twenty-one.
The lucky number.
Her tears dragged dangerous compassion from my arctic soul, hauling me into humanness.
Bad things happened when I let myself get this way.
Terrible things that I couldn’t control.
But Nila was my undoing.
I think I’d known that the moment I tore her dress off in Milan. I had no strength to pretend—not after this. Not now.
I needed to take her. To fully claim her, so I could give in completely to the one thing I’d run from all my life.
If I took her now, there would be no turning back for me. Damn the fucking consequences.
Groaning, I threw away the flogger. “It’s over.”
Nila sobbed harder, gratefulness a sharp tang in the air.
With shaky fingers, I unbuttoned my jeans, moving forward into destruction and disrepair.
She was my prize.
Nothing would stop me from taking it.
Chapter Fifteen
