But all I care about is Knox.
“You’re right.” A sigh escapes me, jagged and raw. “She doesn’t get another piece of me. Not my pain. Not my soul.”
Crying is pointless. I cry anyway. Stupid tears, they won’t stop.
“Yes,” he says. “You finally see it.”
A strangled sound rips out of me when he steps back.
Panic pushes against my ribs. But then I see what he’s doing. He isn’t leaving.
His bloodied fingers toy with the button of his jeans, abs flexing as he strips down.
My pussy clenches. God, he’s beautiful. Six feet five inches of muscle, carved veins, and violent energy. His cock is hard, throbbing, pulsing in his fist as he strokes himself.
The desire coiling inside me isn’t soft or sweet. It’s a molten pressure. A searing heat.
He’s going to fuck me here, strung up on the hooks.
I hope he won’t be gentle. In fact, I’ll die if he doesn’t rail me like I’m his, until I remember that I’m here, with him.
I need it brutal. I need it real.
I need to feel alive.
“Except it isn’t about being right, Skylar.” One step. Two. He’s back on me, crowding my space. Two fingers spear into my pussy without warning. Our blood slicks me from the inside. “It’s about justice. About knowing you deserve this, deserve me. Not just now, but always. She can’t terrorize you anymore. She’s done controlling you. And so are they.” His family.
Before I can answer, his fingers sink deeper, curling inside me.
My mouth parts, my breath leaving my lungs at how skilled he is. At how he finds the place no inexperienced man should ever find so easily. Unless that man is Knox, the obsessed predator who never lets me out of his sight.
The pleasure is so intense I can’t stop the sound tearing free from my throat. I scream as I come, as he whispers, “That’s it, let it out.”
And despite this life-altering orgasm, I’m still cut open, raw. There’s so much pain in me. From being Bronwyn’s punching bag. From all the gore I’ve had to bear witness to.
“There’s only you,” I murmur, from the bottom of my heart. “Only you. Help me, Knox.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he answers, like a promise and a threat all at once. Knox rubs me faster. His low groan pushes a gasp out of me. “I’ll give you pain. Give you tenderness. Anything you need. I’ve got you, Trouble. Always.”
He presses his thumb to my clit. The pad is coarse, wet with blood, circling the place I need him most. Demanding another orgasm out of me.
His face hovers close, lips brushing the air I breathe, though he won’t let me kiss him. Every time I lean in, he pulls back, being cruel. Tormenting me, just like I’ve asked him to.
A frustrated growl rises in my throat, heat and fury tangling with need.
He smirks at my desperation.
“Your life. Your tears. Your laughter. The air you breathe. None of that ever belonged to Bronwyn. It wasn’t hers. It isn’t your family’s. You’re mine.”
My soul cracks open for him. I take in his love, his protectiveness. “Yours.”
“So no, you’re not sick or bad. You’re fine.” He adds a third finger into me, stretching me impossibly wider. Owning me from the inside out. “Better than fine. You’re mine.”
His words barely land with how rough he’s taking me. Knox’s fingers drive me wild. My toes curl tight, vision hazy.
Every vicious stroke shoves me closer, fear coiling low in my stomach.
My next orgasm isn’t a release. It happens so fast that—fuck—it hurts.
