A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

“And the man?” he finally spoke, his clipped tone reverberating through the inky room. “The one you blackmailed? He doesn’t expect anything from you?”

Something simmered in his voice. Something dangerous that prickled the back of my neck, hinted at the person he really was.

“No,” I replied, my voice even. “I expected that. For him to find a way to get me back. Try to take advantage of me, thinking that I was cheap, that he owned me.” I smiled. “No man can own me. I made that clear. And surprisingly, he accepted that.”

I enjoyed a friendly relationship with Edwin, because he was a ruthless piece of shit. He appreciated that I was too. He knew I’d make good on my threats and was eager to keep his life intact. I was also fucking great at my job.

“Not many men would accept that,” he said, voice gravelly. “They would make you theirs.”

Something in his voice hit the very core of me. “They could try,” I challenged.

His hand tightened at my hip, and the air turned thick. Charged. It was minutes before he spoke again.

“What else, Sienna?”

He spoke as if he knew there was something more. One last thing I was holding back.

“I’m engaged,” I said finally. Not exactly a revelation since the diamond on my ring finger was not designed to go unnoticed. I did not think he’d missed it. This man did not strike me as someone who would overlook anything. Beyond that, he’d explored me. Every inch of me. He’d seen it. The ring that signified I was promised to someone else. That I belonged to someone else.

It hadn’t bothered him. Because we both knew I belonged to him from the moment our eyes met in Bella.

“He doesn’t know me,” I continued. “He knows the woman who works at a prestigious law firm. He knows I come from humble beginnings; he knows I lost the only blood relative that cares about me on this earth. But he doesn’t know me. Which was why I chose him, I guess. Because after everything I’ve done in the darkness, I wanted to be the woman who lives in the light.”

The words came out of me smoothly, as if they had been inside me, fully formed, waiting for me to find the courage to release them. Or waiting for the right person to hear them. I despised the idea of fate and soul mates. They were dreamed up by men who wanted women passive and concentrated on finding ‘the one’ instead of distracting them from the evidence showing that the entire system was designed to take away their autonomy, rights and voices. And as much as I hated the idea of fate, I couldn’t shake the fact that this was something remarkably like it.

Of course, the things he’d done to me were not suitable for any Disney movie. Fuck, not even a porno, but they fit me.

“I’m out in the sunlight with him, playing a role, and I play it well,” I whispered. “But I belong in the darkness, truly and utterly. I have to pretend to love the sunlight and a regular life because I’m terrified of what I’ll uncover about myself in the darkness.”

The silence around us thrummed like a living thing and my breathing was shallow and rapid. It was like I’d run a marathon, sprinting through the years of my life, uncovering everything I’d worked so hard to bury. Was it because I simply couldn’t hold in my secrets any longer, and it had everything to do with me and nothing to do with this man? That would be an easy thing to tell myself.

But I knew it wasn’t that. If I had to, I would’ve kept this inside my entire life.

If I hadn’t met him.

The bed depressed as he got up, and I felt his absence immediately. Panic brewed in my stomach, terrified that this was the moment he’d tell me to leave, informing me he’d had his fill, decided I was entirely too fucked-up and crazy to warm his bed.

“Lie on your stomach,” he demanded.

My pulse spiked at his tone, and I didn’t hesitate to do as he asked.

The second I got into position, his hands were on me. Running up the backs of my thighs, yanking my lower torso upward so he could cup my pussy, fingers trailing along where I was most sensitive.

“I’m going to eat your ass,” he informed me, moving his fingers backward, there.

My body clenched in anticipation, my pussy throbbing with need.

“Then,” he said, slipping his finger inside. “I’ll fuck it. Because despite what you think, Sienna. There is one man on this earth who can own you.”

Chapter Four

I stayed the entire night. Until sunlight crept across the room and illuminated the space I’d spent hours in. The space that had heard my secrets, my cries of pleasure, my whimpers of pain—the space that held more of me than my apartment.