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I wasn’t much older than sixteen, and he was eighteen and was on active duty. He found me at the reception afterward, snuck me a drink, and I was in love. From the moment he laid eyes on me, I got swept up in him, and he never let me go. He was my first and only love.

“Nick…” I breathe, sliding my hand over his face. “I can’t believe I forgot you.” My stomach lurches as the realization sinks in to what this all means. “When did you start to suspect it wasn’t an accident?”

His eyes flicker again. “The day it happened. People in town talk.”

My skin gets itchy. “Is that why you pursued me?”

He chews his bottom lip. “Yeah. Originally. I wanted to keep you close. Then you intrigued me, so I decided I wanted you to fall in love with me before I broke you.”

He not only broke me, he shattered me to pieces.

“Then what happened?” I ask.

“I fell in love with you.” I turn my face away, but he grips my chin and forces me to look at him. A powerful throb hits between my legs. “I don’t believe in coincidences, wildling. The deaths point to your family, baby.” My stomach churns as he lines up the facts so elegantly. There is no one else it could be.

Beth Ashby is Stormwood Lumber. They are the same. She owns every aspect and conveniently cuts me out. She’s the only person who makes sense.

Except it doesn’t.

I was the one who killed Natalie. Beth is a lot of things, but she is my mother. She wouldn’t kill people for no reason. I crank my head and face away from him. I don’t want him to see me cry. He runs his hand down my back and moves to my ass, gripping it.

“What do you need from me right now?”

Nothing he can give me anymore.

“I killed Natalie,” I whisper. His body twitches at the mention of his dead twin. “I left her for dead, Nick. Not my mother. She had nothing to do with it.”

This triggers him. In two flat seconds, he flips me around, pushing me to the grass. He hovers on top of me, and I smile despite myself, lifting my knees up around him. My wet arousal dripping out of me. My body once more craving pain and punishment. His eyes are monstrous, and shadows creep over his face, his scars shifting to the surface of his skin. Deep tendrils that seem to etch into me as if pulling into a dark vortex of pain.

With his free hand, he rips off my panties, readies his dick, and because I’m already so wet, he slides into me. Anchoring himself, he thrusts hard and fast, grabbing my throat and pressing my face into the earth. Stars hit my vision.

I absorb him. I absorb this memory for what it is. Bending into what I need at this moment. Half-conscious at home and half in the darkest pit of my mind.

“Is that what you want?” he growls, his eyes wild. “To spend the rest of your pathetic life getting fucked like the little killer you are? I can punish you all day, every day, baby. I will destroy your fucking soul.”

I respond in a pathetic moan.

He holds my neck so hard, he starts to cut off the air supply. “Maybe I should just kill you already,” he growls. “That way I don’t have to hear you talk about her.”

“Do it,” I choke out.

The harder he squeezes, the deeper my pleasure blooms, and it’s not long before my orgasm rolls through me and stars trickle around the peripheral. I’m nearly at death by the time he releases me, staring down at me with smug satisfaction as I gasp for air. My lungs are burning.

I’m still coming down from my high, withering beneath him as he grabs his gun again. I stay on the ground and spread my legs, bearing everything for him. My body is thrumming as he curls his fingers around his gun and he keeps his eye on his target. “You like being treated like a wild little whore, don’t you?”

This is how I like it now. This is what he’s created.

“Yeah,” I breathe.

“Say it louder.”

“Yes,” I moan.

He pulls me up and leans back, his legs sprawled out beside him. He grips my hips and pulls me down on his cock.

“Oh god, Nick.”

I thrust my knees, so I’m grinding and pounding down on him. The tip of his cock so painful on my sensitive skin.