The mirror ripples in the corner. A faint shimmer of moonlight on a still lake in the distance. The sharp, gray gleam of a dagger’s edge catching the light. But there is no light.
I shut my eyes. It’s hard to be certain when the darkness never changes in the airless, windowless square of space.
Don’t scream.
Screaming will only bring Marcus and questions I’m unwilling to answer.
Cold brushes the naked skin of my arms. A deliberate breeze that tugs at the worn threads of my T-shirt.
Teases my nipples.
I bite my lip. Fight to ignore the familiar rush of warmth filling my belly.
Not again.
The air thickens. It crawls up the sleeves of my top, drips down my shoulders. Circles my nipples. Unleashes a bucket of tingles down my spine.
“Stop it,” I rasp, dragging the thin sheets tighter around myself.
My thighs press together across the cool mattress like that might stop it from touching me where I am already aching for him.
But the room hums. A familiar vibration only I seem to be able to hear. A frequency meant only for me as it worms in through my skull and crawls through every nerve in my body. It fills me. It strokes the threads connected to my willpower and I feel myself softening.
“Let go,”he coaxes through the wires of my mind, a deliberate stroke that has my toes curling.
“No…”
Invisible hands twist into sheets and tug.
They snap from my fingers and slither down my chest. I gasp and scramble to recapture it, but it’s gone. It’s torn from the bed and sent somewhere into the dark.
I am exposed. Vulnerable on the sliver of foam, draped in darkness where I can see nothing and it can see everything. Even in the T-shirt, the only piece of clothing on me, I am bare.
“Why do you fight, little pet?”
His voice is satin and gravel. Age and dust. It is infinitely old, something primal and ancient beneath the earth itself. And itwhispers to me like I am glass. Like I am a fine, priceless figurine in his hands.
“I don’t want this,” I snap. “You’re a liar.”
Cool breath brushes my ankles. It ghosts up my calves. Stops at my knees. There are no fingers, but a weight of air curling into bone.
“I’m a demon.”
My knees are forced apart. They’re dragged wide to expose the damp heat already sweltering in preparation for his arrival. A lewd show of my naked mound.
There is no substance, no pressure of a body climbing over me, but I know he has. I know he’s there before my top is bunched and pulled, torn from my body.
“But I have never lied to you.”
Every breath a jagged pant — I tell myself of fear, but it’s not. God, help me, but it’s not fear that has my breasts plumping, silently begging.
“You said you would help me,” I throw back, staring hard into the place I think his face might be.
His growl guts me. It rolls through me with the liquid heat of warm honey. It fills and possesses me with a … joy, I can’t shake. It’s the gruff rumble of a predator and I am his prey.
“And I will.”
Icy cold wisps kiss my nipple. Cut my skin. They slice thin lines I’ll find in the morning as a reminder of who I belong to.
