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“I’m thinking about what your father would say,” I reply. “If he knew you were here.”

She is quiet. Lost in her own thoughts as she studies me.

"Sometimes, I don't know what my father would say," she admits. "I love him very much. But I feel like I don't know him very well. He had so many secrets. And I have wondered..."

She threads her fingers together in her lap and looks into my eyes again.

"Wondered what?" I press.

"I have wondered what he did to you, Javi."

I do not answer her.

Bella rises from her chair and moves towards me.

My pulse quickens.

She approaches me the way one would approach a wild animal. My fists are locked at my side, my muscles tense. Her arm trembles and her lip does too. She raises my hood and pushes it back away from my face.

My body is still sore. Still healing. And it looks worse than usual.

I don't like this. I don't like her seeing me like this. I move to grab her wrist. But she is fast this time. And determined.

"No, Javi," she says. "I want to see you. Let me see you."

My body goes on the offensive. Every muscle tightening and contracting. Every instinct inside of me demanding that I eliminate the threat. But one look into Bella’s eyes gives me the control I need to restrain myself.

My hand falls back to my side. And I let her see me. I cannot deny this angel.

She moves between my legs. Hesitates. Now it feels as though she is the predator. She sits on my lap, and her palm comes up to touch my face.

I close my eyes when she maps out the scars with her fingertip. I don't like it. But I don't want her to stop either.

"Bella."

My voice is hoarse. Strained. I don't know what I need from her. But my Bella knows. She leans in and kisses me. She kisses my scars, healing me in some way. As though they could disappear beneath her gentle touch.

I know that they can't. But it feels like they are. Like she is the cure to my disease. Her lips find mine. I can't be gentle with her anymore. I catch her face in my hands and kiss her violently. She whimpers but does not protest.

I am hard for her. So fucking hard. I grind my hips into her soft flesh and want so badly to feel her from the inside. I want to destroy her and fill her with my come.

I want her to cry so I can taste her tears. I want her to make me bleed. I don't know how to make it stop. I can’t cure this madness in my head.

I’m not supposed to want her this way. I’m not supposed to feel anything when I look at her.

Her hands are on me. On my skin. Beneath my shirt. Touching me. Feeling me. Burning and healing me.

"Take off your sweater," she begs. "Please, Javi."

I look into her eyes, seeking out the deception I am certain to find there. But it is absent.

"Please," she says again.

I push my hand between her legs. Cupping her through the leggings. She is wet for me. For the monster beneath her. I don't understand it. How can she want something so bad for her?

"Javi."

She's pulling up the sweater herself now.

My mind is still at war, but my body is responding to her. Lifting my arms up when she tells me. My sweater ends up on the floor, and my chest is bare for her. Hard and scarred to her soft and pure.

Her palms move over me, exploring. Her lips find the skin of my throat first. And then my collar bone. Then the scars that litter my body. I close my eyes, and my head falls back against the chair.

She is the only one I've ever allowed to touch me in this way. I would not have believed that it was possible.That it could be real.

But it is.

I am allowing her to touch me, and she is wet for me.

"You have always been mine," I tell her.

Her hand moves down to the bulge in my sweatpants, cupping the hard heat through the material.

“But what about you, Javi?” she asks. “Does that mean you are mine, too?"

I groan when she squeezes me through the material, my self-control hanging on by a thread. She leans forward in my lap and kisses my neck again. All the way up to my ear.

"Let me have you," she says. "Let me have all of you."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

JAVI’S FINGERS dig into my hips, his eyes sharp and intense.

"You don't know what you're asking for."

"I do," I tell him, and it's a lie.

I know Javi is fucked up in the head. I know that he is a well of darkness I haven't even tapped into yet. And I fear those parts of him. But I am also drawn to it.

The darkness in him speaks to the darkness in me.

The space between us is loud with energy, boiling over into our heated skin.

"Get up," he tells me.

I hesitate.

Afraid he is going to reject me. Afraid he is going to send me away. It isn't what I want. I don't know how to convince him otherwise.

He reaches up and snags a handful of my hair in his grip.

"Are you going to do what you're told, Bella?"

His voice is menacing and hot. Hungry and full of promise. He's on the verge of breaking. And I think he just might give in.

So I stand, and he releases his grip on my hair, lifting his hips up to remove his sweat pants. I try to help him, and he growls at me.

"Do as you are told, Bella. Be a good girl."

I let him do it, even though it's obvious he is in pain. He removes his pants and slides to the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over so that his feet rest on the floor and his hands are at his sides.

"Now come here."

I come to him, still fully clothed. Javi directs me with short, precise commands. He tells me to remove my shirt. And I do. Then my pants.

I do.

I'm standing before him in my bra and panties, and he's on the verge of losing control. I want him to. So I provoke him by removing the rest without his permission.

I am naked before him. Naked and cold and vulnerable.Something I have never liked to be. I don't know why I like it so much right now.

Javi's palm spreads over my hip and slides up my rib cage to cup my breast, his thumb skating across my nipple. I jerk forward like I’m being pulled by a magnet. Crushing against his body heat, and still not close enough.

He is a composition of hard muscle and painted tattoos. His cock, rigid and swollen against his thigh.

He's a monster. A chillingly hot monster. And I want him. I want him so badly it hurts deep in my core. He's going to ruin me. Destroy me. Physically and mentally. I know this. And yet I beg him for it, even as he shoves me to my knees before him.

"Kiss me."

I kiss him.

On the head of his cock.

The moisture of his arousal slides over my lips, and I part them to lick it off. In doing so, my tongue brushes against the head of his cock, and he groans.

As with all things, Javi does not have the patience for me to take him softly or slowly. He grabs my head and shoves himself deep into my throat, gagging me.

He holds me there, testing me. My hands rest on his thighs, and I don't dare move. I don't even breathe. I remain silent and still, my eyes watering while he measures my limits.

"Is this what you want, little Bella?"

I try to nod, but I can't move my head under the force of his grip. He sighs and releases me, allowing me to fill my lungs.

I look up at him. He expects animosity. Hopes for it. Anything to stop this. His eyes are pleading with me. Begging me to have some sense. To understand that he is a monster. To understand that I am asking him to destroy me. My eyes implore him to do it. To do the thing my lips can't speak of.

I rest my cheek against his thigh, stroking my fingers over the scarred skin there. The still raw wounds of his new injuries. Pressing a little harder than I should. Giving him the thing I know he wants and craves. The pain.

He shudders. Petting my hair beneath his palm while I trace the sensitive flesh with