Page 42 of Hollow Forest

How many times would this man bleed for me? First the stab wound, then this? He was insane! I pressed the bath towel against his chest. I blotted the wound, feeling moisture gather in the corners of my eyes. The brutality threatened to choke me.

His touch settled around my wrist. My other wrist. The one that splayed flat on his ribs.

A cold shiver of fear skated through me.

I’d touched him.

“Are you insane!” I hissed, the extent of the situation dawning on me.

He looked me dead in the eye, straight into my soul. “Yes, beautiful, but that’s why you love me.”

His hard touch dropped to my waist. He bent over me, mouth finding mine. There was an urgency in his kiss. Shock made my mouth open to him. He drew in a sharp breath and kissed me without mercy.

He yanked me closer, his touch exploring my flesh.

This was a damn trick, and it flipped the tables on me. I was completely and wholly at his mercy. He kissed me like he needed me to breathe. Under my touch, his pulse was wild and reckless.

“You cheat!” I hissed, but his smile on my mouth was the only answer.

Breaking the kiss, he dropped to his knees. Water drenched his jeans, but he shoved my thighs apart. “I never said I would play fair,” he growled and buried his face between my legs.

There was a gasp. My own, I realized, sudden and strangled, like a scream trapped in the throat. I wanted to protest. But only because he’d made the decision for me. It was the decision I would have made in the end. We both knew it. As his hot tongue slid along my pussy, I knew this was where we would always end up. There was no other outcome.

My body tightened with a need so painful, it might have broken me. Nothing else could evoke this kind of pleasure. He’d edged me to the brink before. If he did that again, I might just die.

I dropped my hands to his shoulders, silently confirming the deal was broken. I touched him. I surrendered.

Wrapping an arm behind my legs, he reached for my center. Long, hard fingers thrust into my core. I moaned aloud as he stroked the sensitive spot deep inside.

I was already close.

I needed to come.

Looking down, I begged him with incoherent sounds to finish me. Bright red blood smeared against the inside of my knee. He’d claimed the new name I’d given myself like he was claiming me with every stroke of his tongue.

With a growl, he told me he understood. He sucked my clit. The sensation drove me toward a release with enough speed that I felt almost dizzy.

His other hand fell from my hip. Before I could question what he was doing now, he swiped two fingers over the jagged, crimson letters. The next second, they were pushing past my lips.

Iron spread over my tongue. The tang was maddening. I was so fucking turned on that I did the only logical thing.

I sucked—hard.

The monster groaned.

His attention turned wild. It was a savage exchange. Our obsessive need was the only thing that mattered.

Because…I needed him.

That thought set off the explosion inside me.

My body stiffened. I cried out around his fingers still hooked in my mouth. The orgasm swept over me with a fury that conquered everything.

He held me there, relentless, riding out every wave, tongue and fingers coaxing every last aftershock until I was a twitching, jelly-legged wreck.

My legs tried to squeeze his head in a death grip, but he only grunted approval and worked me harder. I forgot my own name. I forgot everything except the molten center of my body and the way he seemed so damn pleased to unravel me.

Another release began to build on the spasms of the first.