Wretched Love

SWISS

“I feel like I was made to be yours.”

Those words kept me up for hours, long after she had drifted off to sleep. Or lapsed into unconsciousness. I’d drained her fucking dry. I’d been unable to stop, even seeing that she was on the edge, seeing that her muscles could barely hold her up anymore. But the second I tasted her, tasted her fucking blood, heard her ask me to fuck her in a tone that suggested she never asked a man that in her life, all of my control evaporated.

And she’d fucking loved it. Every second. If I’d taken it further, she would’ve gone until she collapsed. She never would’ve uttered the safeword I’d never given anyone but her.

No, I knew that.

She might have been new to this kind of shit, but she was made to fuck like this.

She was made for me.

Not just because she was the hottest fuck I’d ever had, not just because she was fucking drop dead gorgeous—which she was. But because she asked me to fuck her before she gave me her name.

Kate Edwards.

That was her name. I’d gone into her purse and checked out her driver’s license after she’d drifted off.

Kate Edwards from New Hampshire.

A housewife who’d left her husband. Who had somehow found herself out of her element at a club party half a country away from her listed address. Who had found herself standing next to the most dangerous man in the room in a room full of ruthless motherfuckers. Well, maybe Hades and I were tied for most dangerous man in the room.

She couldn’t have known that implicitly, but she’d sensed it. There was something about me that awakened ancient survival instincts. I knew that. I also knew that people reacted one of three ways. One, they wanted to get the fuck away from me as quickly as possible. Two, if they were men, they wanted to challenge me in order to establish dominance—those men were not long for this world. Three, if they were women—or a man who went that way—they wanted to fuck me because they wanted to be close to death. Wanted to test their limits.

Everyone I fucked had a death wish.

Except Kate.

No, the thing about her that grabbed me by the balls was that she was wishing for something else.

Life.

And fuck did she awaken something in me. Resurrected something in me.

Those thoughts were not what kept me awake, though. I was nowhere near scared about feeling these things. Being with her felt fucking natural. As easy as goddamn breathing.

What was keeping me up was one comment.

One line.

“He is the only man I’ve ever been with… consensually.”

There was someone out there, living, breathing who had touched her without her consent. The mere thought had lava in my throat, red film covering my eyes with one need.

To kill.

To kill whoever had done that to her.

But I needed to tread carefully. This might have been the first night I’d met her, but I saw that she was running from a lot. I had no idea what the fuck was going on with her past, but I could get the idea.

Husband who treated her like shit, didn’t understand what he had in his home. Living for a kid. Playing some kind of role that did not match up with who she was inside.

You could fucking see it. Across the room tonight, I could see it. She was brand-new to this town, to this life. And she was terrified. Fear I knew. I specialized in it.

So yeah, I had to tread carefully.

But as I settled in bed, yanking her to me, I understood what was happening. She was fucking mine.