"You want to be punished?"
"Yes." The word rips out of me, raw—my hands fisting in his shirt, dragging him back down, holding him there. Not letting him retreat. My body arches into his like a live wire, every nerve screaming for impact.
"Fine." His jaw tightens, something dark and decisive snapping into place as his hand curls in my shirt, yanking me flush against him. "Let's do this."
Then his hand isn't at my throat anymore; it's cupping my face, his fingers tangling in my hair with a desperate, violent hunger. He lunges, his mouth crashes into mine—teeth, breath, fury—years of restraint detonating in a single, violent impact. It's not a kiss. It's a fight. A claim. A dare answered.
Thorne doesn't kiss me so much as he devours the defiance right out of my lungs. It's a collision of teeth and a low, guttural sound that vibrates from his chest into mine. My back is still pressed against the cold cinder block, but the heat coming off him is a physical weight, pinning me in place more effectively than his hand at my throat ever could.
I don't just take it. I fight back. My hands scramble for purchase on the stiff Cordura of his tactical vest, my nails digging into the seams until I find the sensitive skin of his neck. I pull him closer, needing the friction, needing the bruise. If I'm a virus, I want to infect him until he's as sick with this as I am.
"You're a monster," he growls against my lips, his breath hitching as I bite his lower lip hard enough to taste copper.
"Then show me," I rasp, my legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him into the cradle of my hips. "Show me how much you hate what I am."
He snaps. The last thread of his legendary restraint frays and ignites.
His pupils swallow the irises until there's nothing left but a black, bottomless vacuum of need. With a guttural roar of pure frustration, he reaches up and rips the Velcro of his tactical vest open. The sound is like a bone snapping.
He flings the heavy gear across the room, followed by his shirt, leaving him bare-chested and heaving, his skin mapped with scars and the rigid tension of a man who has finally lost the war within himself.
His grip locks in my shirt, hauling me into him hard enough to steal my breath, the fabric twisting tight between us.
He's a storm of motion, unzipping, unbuckling, his movements efficient and violent. I'm gasping for air that isn't there, my head lolling back against the stone as his mouth drops to my throat, his teeth grazing the pulse point he was just crushing moments ago.
On some level, I've always known this eventuality, the specific consequence of being in a room with a man who has every reason to destroy me and has been choosing not to. It couldn't last. Was never going to last.
His palms are rough, calloused from triggers and training, and they burn like branding irons against my thighs. He doesn't wait for permission. He doesn't ask. This is a desperate, angry claim of the woman he swore he'd never touch.
"This changes nothing," he mutters, though his hands are shaking. "You're still the enemy," Thorne growls, his mouth crashing into my neck. He bites, marking me. "Every inch of this hell you built is mine to punish."
Thorne's mouth crashes into the junction of my neck and shoulder. He doesn't kiss; he bites, marking me, claiming the skin as if he can brand the guilt right out of me.
He spins me around with a jarring motion, slamming my palms against the cold, grit-covered wall. I welcome the sting. I want to feel the weight of my crimes in his hands, rough, unforgiving. There is no talk of protection. I don't deserve the consideration, and he's too far gone to offer it. He is a man starving, and I am the only thing on the menu.
His hands, massive and calloused, reach around to cup my breasts, squeezing with a bruising intensity that makes me cry out. He hooks my leg, hiking it over his hip, and then he lunges.
The first thrust is a rupture. A brutal, uncompromising invasion that steals the air from my lungs and replaces it with fire. I groan, my forehead thudding against the stone, my fingers clawing at the mortar until my nails bleed.
"Look at the wall," he commands, his voice a distorted wreck. He's pounding into me with a rhythmic, frantic desperation. "Remember who you are, Stratton. Remember what you did."
"I—remember," I choke out as pleasure coils sharply and agonizingly in my stomach. "I remember what I am every day."
This war between us isn't pretty. It's messy. No slow burn or a gentle exploration. It's a frantic, rhythmic battle.
Every thrust is a punishment; every gasp I draw is a surrender. The friction against the wall is raw, the grit of the concrete biting into my skin, but I welcome the pain because it's the only thing that matches the intensity of the pleasure.
His breathing is ragged and close in my ear. The desperate rhythm of a man trying to exorcise something, only to discover the exorcism requires the very thing he is trying to burn out.
He reaches around, his fingers digging into my hips, anchoring me as he increases the pace. The friction is raw. My skin is burning against the wall, but the dam has burst.
I can't tell anymore where the punishment ends, and the want begins. They are the same thing. They have been the same thing since he held a gun to my chest.
Thorne's fingers sink into my hair, pulling my head back so I have to look at him. His eyes are dark, clouded with a cocktail of self-loathing and pure, primal hunger. He looks like a man drowning, and I'm the anchor dragging him down.
We're both slick with sweat and the heavy scent of desperation. The only sound is the wet slap of skin, the frantic hitch of our breathing, and the occasional scrape of his boots against the floor as he fights for leverage.
When he finally breaks, it's a silent thing. He surges into me one last time, pouring his rage and his twisted desire into me. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, his entire frame shuddering.
