“Adam ...” The sound of my name rolling off her tongue slides past my eardrums, heavy like syrup. “He doesn’t have to win.”
When the fingers on my jaw tug downward, I snarl, reluctantly tearing my gaze from Raife to find that Emmy has slithered between us.
Her chin is angled up, her large eyes round and desperate. “Adam.” She lifts to the tips of her toes, forcing herself in my line of vision, and caresses my stubble. I close my eyes to ease the tension coursing through me, but that only makes her soft skin feel ten times heavier on my own.
Her palms slip to my neck, curling around me, then she’s climbing onto me like she did once before. She winces through the movement, but doesn’t stop. My breaths are hard, my jaw twitching as she wraps her legs around me and latches on.
Her lips reach my ear, and she whispers, “Master. Take me away with you.”
For a minute, I don’t move. The rage radiating inside me is suffocating. But when her voice rings in my ears long after she quiets, her disobedience echoing all around me—Master. Master. Master—my hand eases away from Raife’s neck.
He smirks the same moment I slice the knife across his cheek, from his ear to his lips. In a matter of seconds his face twists from pain to anger to betrayal. Then eventually, satisfaction.
Son of a bitch.
I wipe the look off his face by slamming his head back against the wall, and he groans.
Emmy’s arms squeeze my neck tighter, her short breaths on my skin and her thighs clenching around my hips, warmth rubbing my cock. My muscles contract painfully. I grit my teeth as I shut my knife and slip it back into my pocket, then wrap my arms around her. I have to force her higher to stop the friction before I lose my fucking mind, I’m wound so tight.
I pin Raife with a final glare. “This isn’t finished.”
His lips twitch, fresh blood from his cut dripping toward them, and he rubs the back of his head. “I’ll be waiting.”
After swiping the recorder off his dresser on my way out, I grip Emmy tight and pace toward my room.
Every fiber of my being burns with the weight of these past weeks, and every bit of it revolves around the mouse latched onto me. My body is so tight with tension I’m fucking shaking against hers.
As we’re swallowed into the depths of black halls, it all hits me at once like a train on full speed crashing into a brick wall.
I may be her master, but she owns me, too.
And if I don’t make it stop, it’s going to fuck us both.
