Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Taste and truth.
Both those things had the potential to decimate the cardboard fortress that kept wilting around my heart.
“If I told you that I have dreams of rutting into you on the lawn. Of making you sob as you come and screaming my name as I bruise you…how does that make you feel?”
I convulsed.
The sickness tore through me, hijacking all my control.
His eyes turned black; his voice thick. “If I told you I wanted to string you up and gag you. If I admitted I wanted to eat you out, then cut the inside of your thigh with my sharp little knife…what parts of you respond?”
What parts?
God, all of them.
I grew damp and hot and wet.
Horribly, disturbingly wet.
I couldn’t help it.
I’d never been able to help it.
Why can’t I help it?
I hated this man.
I feared this man.
He was the reason my life was ruined, yet…right here, right now, I’d never felt so alive. So cherished as he’d pummelled those who hurt me. So precious as he killed for me—
God, Ily…stop—
“If I told you I wanted to drag you into the dungeons. If I admitted I wanted to whip that hate right out of you and force you to feel every part of me…would you fight me or bow for me?”
Fire.
Everything was on fire.
He was flames and fury, burning me alive with his wrath.
I didn’t believe in fairy-tales.
I didn’t really believe in destiny.
So why did Henri and I burn so badly together?
No, not just burned…blazed.
There was a name for that.
A label for that.
My eyes flew wide.
Horror filled me.
A Vedic astrologer told me once.
He warned me—
No.
It can’t be.
It can’t—
Henri spun me around, then marched me back until my spine slammed against the wall. Tugging my head aside with his fist in my hair, he pressed his lips to my throat. “If I told you that my teeth literally ache to bite you. That my tongue stings with the need to taste you. That my body is moments away from taking yours—with or without your permission—what would you say?” His teeth threatened to puncture. “Answer me. Or I’ll answer for you, and if I do…there’ll be no going back.”
I gasped as he licked me.
My heart thundered as he bit above my collar.
Gently at first.
Then harder, harder.
His arms bunched as if trying to restrain himself, caging me against the wall.
I tried to speak. I tried to push him away but every sense, every awareness locked on his hot, hot mouth pressed against my highly sensitive skin.
He trembled as his self-control snapped.
With a guttural groan torn from the depths of his monstrosity, he tossed away the tie and sank his incisors into me.
I fought him.
Instinct made me struggle to get away.
But at the same time, a heaviness fell over me—a haven full of dizzy desperation.
I submitted.
Just like a deer in a lion’s mouth.
Just like a fox in a trap.
I went loose and full of longing, all while I did my best to get free.
I tangled with two very different, very potent things.
He groaned as he broke my skin.
I flinched and cried out in pain.
Pain that morphed into mind-scrambling pleasure.
He snarled as he tasted my blood for the second time.
I was burning, burning.
I’d never been so hot, so tight, so needy.
The word for what we could be together shot into my head again.
A word full of could haves and maybes.
A word full of destiny and star-crossed fate.
He could’ve been my everything.
He could’ve been my only.
But not here.
Never here.
He lapped me, inhaled me.
I couldn’t stop him.
Kicking my ankle aside, he wedged himself between my thighs and hoisted me up the wall. My legs automatically wrapped around his hips. His throbbing hardness pressed against my core.
I couldn’t keep fighting anymore.
I felt faint and woozy and upside down.
W-What’s happening to me?
My hips rocked forward on their own accord, needing, needing, needing.
Cupping my cheek, his fingers shook as he pulled away from the wound he’d caused and licked at a ruby streak on his bottom lip. “Goddammit, little nightmare…”
My chin came up.
His tipped down.
He came so, so close to kissing me.
My heart burst wide open.
He hurt me worse than anyone.
He was driven by demons I could never exorcise.
Yet as he stood there, crazy-eyed and dripping in need, I saw him.
The real him.
The lonely boy. The tortured man. The feral monster.
And in that single moment of time, I forgave him, wanted him, begged him.
Pressing his forehead to mine, he reached down and angled his cock to find me.
I didn’t judge my complicity. Didn’t care the bite on my neck drove me deeper into delicious hell. We were a match made in perfect fucked-up heaven, and I clawed at his back to finish what he started.
I needed to be claimed, bruised…awakened into this new misery where I’d fallen.
Henri stroked his thumbs on my hipbones—that maddening, mocking swirl. “It’s driving you insane, isn’t it?” His entire face resembled that of the beast inside him—cut with shadows and hollow with wanting. “Now you know how I feel every second I’m around you.”