“It will keep me from killing you.” I needed to be inside her. It was the only way we could be free of hate without destroying each other. Besides…it wasn’t fear that made her body tremble as I pushed her flat on her back.
She needed it too.
She didn’t fight me as I finished removing her clothes. Didn’t protest when my lips touched her hot skin. She didn’t even try to pretend she didn’t want it.
“That’s the second time you tried to kill me.” I kissed down her stomach.
“If you’re not careful, it’ll become a habit,” she breathed. Her body jerked as if shocked by electricity when I licked the skin just above her pussy. Only Mian could threaten me and come apart for me simultaneously. God was feeling pretty self-indulgent the day he created her, and he secured my rightful place in hell when he placed her in my path. “I’m not afraid of you, Angel Knight.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of me.” I yanked her panties down her slender legs and stuffed them in my back pocket. “But you should be afraid of what you’ll become without me.”
She gasped and shivered when my mouth hovered over her sex, and I inhaled her scent. Suddenly, I didn’t want to breathe again unless it was her essence that filled my body with life.
“We aren’t enemies.” I placed a soft kiss upon her sex, and she jerked again in my arms. “That will never be us again.” I crawled up her supple body and settled between her legs. “It’s time you understood,” I slid inside her slowly, “just how permanent we are.” She sucked in a breath and held it. The monster prowling beneath my surface snapped at my restraint, challenging me to release it or to be forever ruined. “I need you, Mian.” I slowly moved inside her. “Say you believe me.”
Slowly, oh so slowly, she released the air she’d trapped. “I believe you,” she admitted breathlessly. A smile of triumph teased my lips. Instead, I kissed her bare shoulder, rewarding her rather than gloating. I felt her soft hands run through my hair and then tug on the strands until our gazes were locked. “I just don’t care.”
Her gaze was both wary and defiant, expecting retaliation but refusing to fear it. Three years ago, I would have relished her fear because I couldn’t have anything else.
But this wasn’t three years ago, and she was no longer forbidden.
She was mine.
To have, to hold, and to ruin.
I kissed the generous slope of her breasts and watched her nipple harden. “I don’t believe you.” She cared. More than what was right. More than she would ever admit. She cared. She would always care because I belonged to her. That would never change.
“I don’t care.” Her voice broke when I shifted, brushing against her clit. I lifted her left leg over my shoulder and slid deeper.
“I don’t believe you,” I repeated unsteadily, my voice as unreliable as hers.
Her lashes lowered, shutting in the emotion she didn’t want me to see. “I don’t care.”
“I don’t believe you,” I bit out slowly this time. The rabid beast I held at bay pulled at the restraints now, no longer willing to be caged. It wanted to claim her, make her bend to its will. I wanted to give her passion and leave fear in the past.
“I don’t care,” she shouted—not convincingly—at the filigree ceiling. I pumped into her, fucking her harder now. Faster. I was doing my duty while the Knights who ruled before me watched.
“You do care.” I gripped her harder than I should have. My hands would no doubt bruise her soft skin with my mark and damn if that didn’t just make me fuck her harder. “You care so fucking much you’d risk your own life just to prove yourself wrong.” She pressed her lips tight, cutting off the sob before it could release. The next moment, she was shoving me away and crawling backward across the table to put space between us. I could feel her arousal coating my dick as I tucked myself back into my pants and slid from the tabletop.
“What do you want from me if not my life? A possession? I won’t be your trophy,” she vowed before I could answer. “I’ll never stop fighting to get away from you.”
I didn’t want to own her or strip away her most beautiful parts.
I wanted to protect her.
Nurture her.
Keep her, the beast hissed.
“Stay.” It took everything I had left not to close the distance between us. “I just want you to stay.”
“I’ll try on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“There was a couple who took me in back in Mosset where Lucas and Z found me. When you led the senator to me, Becky got hurt. I don’t know if she’s alive and I—”