“Orion—”
My name leaves her lips like a plea. I’ve barely lowered my pants before she begins to twist away, her body moving across the bed in a brazen act of defiance.
“That will make it so much worse,” I warn her, my voice a dark rasp as I push my pants down.
Forearms still bound behind her back, she pushes herself with her knees. The forbidden sight of her struggling to escape soaks my bloodstream with a euphoric rush of adrenaline.
Untamed hunger sparks through my veins, provoking a primal urge from deep within the marrow of my bone, and shadows bleed into my vision. The knowledge that every act to follow is damnable does nothing to stop me.
A violent hunger claws free as I shed the last of my restrictive clothing. “Oh, starling—” I reach across the bed, securing both hands around her ankles. “You had your chance to run. I fuckingtoldyou to run, baby. There’s no escape now.”
I forcibly drag her back toward me, and she kicks out, striking my body with a little fight to whet my appetite. I climb onto the bed. And amid the brief struggle, I have her skirt stripped the rest of the way off her legs, her blouse torn away from her arms.
And as I hover above her, chest heaving, my groin aching at the salacious vision of her trapped underneath, she manages to wriggle a hand free. I pin her other wrist to the bed above her head, leaving her that one hand to fight with.
Banding my fingers tight, I tether myself to her pulse as I drag the crown of my cock over the seam of her ass. Then lower, gliding the tip through her arousal, damn near losing my mind at the hot, drenched feel of her.
I straddle her thighs, clamping my free hand to the sexy flare of her hip. She squirms defiantly beneath me, and shit, her throaty little moan ignites a line of fire up my spine. “God—damn, you’re begging for a brutal fucking.”
“Your unfiltered thoughts are so filthy,” she breathes into the blanket with a reactive shiver.
“Hmm.Trust me”—a dark groan resonates from the cavern of my chest as I grind lewdly against her ass—“I’m holding the worst of them back.”
“Don’t.”
That one word strikes like a match in my gut, charring my weakened restraint to ash between us. Eyes slamming shut, I battle the destructive urge to answer her demand in the most depraved, ruinous way.
“That’s it—” I grunt as I push onto my knees. “I want your eyes on me while I fuck you.” I flip her beneath me, spreading her wide and guiding her legs around my hips, where I settle heavy between her slick thighs and—“Fuck,” I growl, the ravaged sound torn from my throat.
I hold myself rigidly still against her. Muscles corded, tendons strained, every part of me rebels against my shaky control. “Angel, I’m about to commit every filthy, depraved act against this body. Once I’m deep inside you…” I trail off, letting her feel the threat behind my words with the incessant prod of my cock.
The dread that I will destroy her—body, mind, heart—is a volatile mass behind my ribs. I’ve gathered enough fragments to form a crude picture of what haunts her past—and it rips through me with visceral rage.
Her eyes are fathomless as she moves her hand instinctively toward the stretch of scarred skin along her chest to cover it. This same action I’ve watched her do countless times, unaware of the revelation of other scars that I’ve now glimpsed on her body. I recognize their pattern. I know the size and shape of the toothed blade used to carve them.
An unbearable ache flares in the center of my chest as I dip my head, dropping a kiss to the scar seated beneath the soft underswell of her breast. Her breath hitches, a sound lodged thick in her throat.
“You need to tell me, Collins,” I utter against her skin. “Tell me what frightens you.” My demand is punctuated by the slow, controlled grind of my hips as I notch the head of my cock right at the tender center of her.
And the fragile space between us shrinks to breath and pulse and heat.
I could fuck her, mercilessly, ruthlessly, in this bed. Swallowed by darkness. Lost beyond all salvageable reason. That stark truth quivers between us, an enticing dare that would take only the slightest thrust of my hips to satisfy.
In this way, she was always meant for me—to be my victim. Helplessly pinned, held immobile. Impaled to this bed?—
“It’s muscle memory,” she says, her voice dragging me back from the abyss of my thoughts, and I blink hard.
Her swallow moves along the delicate line of her throat. “The paralysis is muscle memory,” she explains, her voice a breathy murmur. “The touch of leather on my skin. The sharp scent of it. The feel smothering my mouth… The weight bearing down…” Her eyes squeeze shut, forcing back a wave of torment as her exhale trembles out. “I froze. I couldn’t fight. I thought…if I just stayed still, it would be over fast.” A sob catches between breaths. “But it wasn’t over fast—and more than my life was stolen. No matter if my heart still beats, if my lungs still draw breath, I didn’t survive. Anytime there’s a threat of intimate touch, my body locks me in that hell. I just…freeze.”
Rage ignites in my bloodstream, a searing fury that infuses my cells. I could incinerate the entire world, let it burn to cinders around us, just to make certain he was reduced to ash within the flames.
She doesn’t need a hero to save her. She needs a monster to fight.
With deliberate movements, I capture her wrist and push it above her head. The motion draws her taut, laying her surgical scar bare, putting the full, sinful beauty of her breasts on display to me. I hold her pinned to the bed as my body drops heavy over hers, aligning us perfect, seamless.
“Fight me,” I say, my voice a broken rasp. “Any pain you need to deliver, I won’t just take it. I’ll relish it, angel.”
At her tremulous exhale, I lower my forehead to hers. My thumb makes rhythmic circles over the pattern of stars across her wrist, fusing my pulse to the staccato beat beneath her skin. And just like that moment as I held her against a speaker of sound waves, I feel her body tense beneath me, her muscles gathering tight in preparation for a struggle.
