Black Wings, Gray Skies (Black Hat Bureau 4)

“Here.” I scratched at my wrist. “I’ll give you the bracelet back.” I groaned in defeat as it stuck. “One day, you’ll find a nice daemoness who isn’t a total headcase, who will be worthy of you. Someone who knows your customs and how to do things right and talks about their feelings instead of cornering you in the shower like a sex-starved maniac. With no clothes on. A naked sex-starved maniac.”

“Rue?”

“Yes?”

“Hush.”

“Don’t hush me,” I grumbled, slumping down his back, which was smooth and smelled nice. Not that I noticed because grr. “You’re already treating me like a sack of potatoes. Don’t treat me like a child too.”

Sadly, with his long legs, we reached the house in record time. He rooted around in a drawer then dumped me into a chair. He used brute strength to subdue me long enough to bind my ankles to the chair legs and my arms behind my back. With twine. From Thanksgiving.

Sweet as sugar, I asked him, “Having fun?”

“Yes.” His eyes met mine, hot and bright. “I should have thought of this sooner.”

“I’m not a turkey dinner.”

“You’re making me hungry.” He trailed a finger down the valley between my breasts. “I could—”

“If you say you could eat me up, I will…” I considered my options. “I’ll bite you.”

“Promise?” He leaned in closer. “Will you leave a mark?”

“I’ll chew off your lips and swallow them.”

“Hmm.”

His gaze dipped to my breasts, and my breath caught in my throat.

“I don’t trust that look.” I scraped the chair legs with each hop I took across the floor to escape him. “Especially while I’m tied up, and I can’t fight back.”

The sexual tension burst like a balloon. Not like I pricked it with a needle, either. More like I stabbed it with a butcher knife.

“Hold still.” A shadow crossed his features, drawing his eyes tight and his lips thin. “I’ll cut the twine.”

“What?” I stopped in my tracks. “Why?”

“You’re struggling,” he pointed out. “You’re obviously not into this.”

“That’s not—”

“I won’t force you. That’s not who I am.”

A ton of bricks fell on my head and crushed my brain to pulp that oozed from cracks in my thick skull.

Okay, so that didn’t happen, but it might as well for the force of the epiphany that struck me.

I can’t fight back.

Me and my big mouth.

“You’re not your father.”

Asa, very obviously not into this anymore either, cut the twine and backed away slowly.

The mention of his father had to put him in the mindset to recall how he was conceived: by force.

“No, I’m not, and I have no plans on becoming him either.”