Take (Deliver 5)

His stomach hardened.

She thought she was looking at him, but she was staring at a stranger. He wasn’t a man who let a woman straddle his lap and dole out vanilla kisses. There wasn’t a docile breath in his body.

He needed pain to feel alive. Perversion to stay focused. He needed the razor-sharp edge.

Let her see you. Then she can decide whether to love you.

“You’re only seeing what you want to see.” He touched her cheekbone and traced a path to her perfect mouth.

“I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done or why I’m here.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She ghosted a hand along the scars on his forearm. “What haven’t you shown me?”

His brutal cravings.

His darkest hunger.

His deepest hurt.

He pointed his eyes at the rope and blade beside the mattress, and she followed his gaze.

“No.” She tensed and started to pull away, shaking her head. “You don’t need that.”

He yanked her back by her hair. “There’s a lot of pain in the world. You can’t avoid it.”

“If you endure it, accept it, it will stop.”

His breath caught. That was his mantra, something he’d only ever repeated to…

He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time with Boones.”

“I adore him.”

“He had his scars deliberately put on him. Does that disgust you?”

“Not at all. They’re an important part of his culture.” She circled a finger around a raised welt on his wrist. “Did your wife wear scars, too?”

“No. She thought it was outdated and crude. But many of the women still practice the art. I find it seductive, exotic, and beautiful.” He met her eyes. “I’ve never cut a woman.”

In his mind, he’d carved countless elaborate illustrations on Kate’s body, but there was one in particular that made his fingers twitch for the blade.

“You haven’t?” Her head flinched back. “But you said cutting a woman is different than a man. Something about a passionate hand and weeping and…” She choked on a gasp of realization. “You were referring to your wife. When she was…”

“When I watched that knife slice her open, I felt it. I felt myself bleed. I heard myself weep. Then all I knew was rage. I emulated that exact cut on the man who killed her, the men who killed my family, and all the others associated with the attack. The more men I sliced, slashed, and carved, the more I liked it. Craved it. So much so I became less discriminatory about my targets.”

“You turned the blade on innocent people. Like Tate.”

“Yes. But I’ve never cut a woman.” He opened his expression and let her see every nefarious intention in his mind.

“No.” She scrambled off his lap so fast she tumbled to the floor. Scooting backward on hands and feet, she screamed miserably, “Stay away from me!”

He sprung after her and seized her ankle, yanking her back to the mattress.

She went crazy, all flailing fists and snapping teeth. He held her to the bed and snatched the rope, making quick work of the knots around her wrists and the cast iron pipe.

Then he sat back on his heels, his legs straddling her hips, restraining her lower body in place. The position reminded him of the night they met, the first time he tied her up.

“We’ve been here before.” He planted his hands on either side of her face and leaned down, biting her lips.

She tried to bite him back, missing his mouth in her outrage. “Let me go!”

“I need you to listen.”

A tremor rippled across her jaw. “Are you going to cut me?”

“With pleasure.”

“Fuck that.” She thrashed. “Fuck you. I won’t let you do this!”

“Stop.” He grabbed her chin and held her head still.

“Please, don’t kill me.” Tears spilled from her liquid blue eyes.

He loosened his grip and glided his fingers along the side of her face. “I can’t lose you.”

It was the most honest, vulnerable thing he’d ever admitted aloud.

“But you’re going to hurt me?” More tears escaped.

“God, yes.” He bent down and ran his mouth over her wet cheeks, kissing away the pain he’d caused her.

“Why?” She gulped air and swallowed back her sobs, a noble effort to pull herself together.

“It’s a need that drives me. A comfort I can’t live without.”

Cutting was a purging, an outlet for the nightmares inside him. As much as he cut himself, it wasn’t the same. He needed the connection to her pain.

Her arms trembled in the rope. “Does it arouse you?”

“With you? Yes.”

“You’re a sadist. I get that. It’s part of what makes you so intense, unusual, and terrifyingly captivating. But Tiago, there’s a difference between hurting a woman who gets off on it and hurting a woman against her will.”

It was a moot point. He didn’t ask permission when he fucked her, and he wouldn’t ask permission for this.

“I won’t surrender to that blade. Not ever.” Her lashes fluttered, and her eyes flicked back and forth before pausing on his. “But I’ll make a deal with you. We’re leaving for Caracas in…?”