“Honed,” he adds, and then I feel it.
The tip of the knife grazing my cheek.
“For generations.”
He doesn’t pull it away. Lets it rest there.
I jerk my head back, putting distance between us. “You know, you’re always pointing knives at me.” I lean into the boredom, letting it bleed into my tone. “It’s getting kind of old.”
It’s a lie. Nothing about this is old.
In fact, I’ve never felt more alive.
He lets out a quiet sound of amusement. “Is it?” he murmurs, the blade drifting lower in a languid glide along my jaw. “I thought you liked dangerous things.”
“I like knowing I’m not about to be stabbed,” I shoot back, even as the knife dips to trace the hollow of my throat, not cutting. Touching.
I swallow carefully, forcing my voice to stay loud and clear. “You’re not actually going to hurt me.”
“Confident,” he says.
“Observant,” I correct.
“You’re wrong.” His voice drops to a rasp. “Every time I’ve held a knife to you…” He trails off, and the blade drags faintly across my skin, light enough not to break it, too sharp to be ignored. “…I’ve thought about it.”
My mind recoils from that image, wanting to reject it but there’s no uncertainty in his tone. He means it.
“Do it then,” I say, lifting my chin even though he can’t see it. Strength meets strength, that’s the only way to get through to him. “I’m not scared of pain.”
“No,” he murmurs, the blade moving again, dipping and swirling. “I don’t think you’d enjoy it.” The tip goes bumping over my collarbone. “You see, I don’t just want to hurt you. I want to mark you.”
I tense, every instinct snapping awake. I search the darkness, desperate for escape even as the chains at my wrists remind me there isn’t one.
“Carve my name into your body. Make it so you carry me with you.Always.”
The knife traces letters across my chest, too quick for me to decipher, but I don’t need to. I know what they spell.
Carrson sighs. “I think about it almost as much as I think about fucking you.”
The words sink into my skin deeper than the blade ever could.
My mouth goes dry. “You—you think about that? With me?”
“All the fucking time, and it pisses me off.” He spits out the words, fast like he needs them gone. “All the other brothers are obsessed with it. Sex.” He says that word,sex, as if it’s vile, beneath him. “Never saw the appeal, untilyou.” An irritated burst of air. “I hate it. How I can’t stop picturing it. What you’d feel like. Taste like. How far I’d go—”
His words stop short, jaw snapping shut.
For a second, two, nothing happens.
I hold still, tuned into what I can sense with my body, my ears, my nose. The heat of him. How he barely breathes. The scent of him, warm and earthy, like the clearing.
“Carrson?” I prompt, careful not to push, just to reach out.
Nothing happens.
Then he exhales slowly, like he’s putting himself back together piece by piece.
“You’re right.” His voice has smoothed out again. Calm. Detached. “This is getting boring. All this talk.” A low chuckle. “Let’s make it more exciting.”
