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He hoists me up again and drops me back into the hole that I came in from. And then he kneels down and pats me on the head.

“Run, run as fast as you can, beauty,” he says. “Don’t let me catch you.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I TRY to stay away from her.

I try.

But she saw. She went into that room, and she saw. And now I want to punish her. I want to beat her ass red and then fuck it. I want to fuck her.

The virgin.

The innocent.

The beauty.

She was not made to be fucked by a beast like me. Beautiful things are not meant to be touched. But I have touched her, anyway.

How can I ever forget it now?

The softness of her skin. The catch in her breath. The way she looked face down while I debased her. The way I rubbed my come into her flesh.

My claim is carved into her arm. Her blood still coats my fingers.

A woman's body is the most sacred thing on earth. That's what River told me when he brought me my first. A prostitute. She wasn't soft like Isabella. But I fucked her nonetheless. She paid me weekly visits for two years. She let me do whatever I wanted to her.

Until I saw her. Until I saw my Bella. Young and faultless and pure as snow. My dick never wanted anyone else after that. But I had to keep it to myself.

Her father couldn't know the depravities that lay hidden within my mind. The depravities I imagined with his own daughter. The most sacred thing on earth.

I kept those thoughts at bay. I told myself that I could never indulge them because he was the one. He was the one I would destroy.But he is gone now. There is nothing to stop me. Nothing to hold me back.

I want to take her. I want to make her mine. I try to tell myself I can't. That I won't.

But I know it's a lie.

It's always been a lie.

I SMELL her before I see her.

The scent of her arousal is still strong. Contaminated with fear and the copper of her blood.

Damp earth sinks beneath my feet as I follow her through the darkness.

She is trying to be quiet. But as I close in on her, she cannot hide the terror in her breaths. And I know when I touch her skin, her pulse will throb against my fingers. I will touch that dread in her veins. And then I will taste it on my lips.

I hunt her through the darkness, and her footsteps quicken. She knows I’m coming. She just doesn’t know when or where.

She stops up ahead beneath a sliver of light, shoving desperately on a trap door that won’t open. The light creates a kaleidoscope of her face, washing it in shattered splinters of orange and the salt of her tears.

Her hope is gone.

And I like her broken. I like her shattered. I want her tears. Her fears. I want the darkest and most intense parts of her. Every human emotion that she can feel, I will experience through her.

My steps are quiet, and she does not hear me coming. But my Bella is smart. Paranoid like her father. She can sense me. She looks down the dark passageway and freezes for a split second before she turns and runs again.

This time, I give chase.

Following behind her, I do not try to disguise the sounds of her predator. I want to feel her heart beneath mine when I capture her.

She catches her foot on a rock and cries out when she collapses onto her knees. Bloody and dirty and still trying to crawl away when she sees my shadow.

“Javi?” she whispers. “Is that you?”

The hope in her voice ignites the hunger in me. She wants it to be me. She dreads it being anyone else. And who else would it be?

This is a fear I did not know existed. One that I will exploit at a later time. But for now, I will take pleasure in this knowledge. And I will not answer her. Even when I catch her around the ankle and she screams, I give nothing away.

I lower the full weight of my body onto hers, pressing her into the dirt as I stroke her hair, and my lips find her throat. She shivers, and her heart is loud. Erratic. Beating so hard it vibrates up through her and into my chest.

She breathes in, and she is relieved.

“It is you.”

My Bella is smarter than I give her credit for sometimes.

I flip her over beneath me and position myself between her legs.

“Please, Javi,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not yet,” I reply. “But you will be.”

Her chest heaves and she trembles when I grasp her throat and lick her face.

This has gone on long enough. I have been too kind to her. She has grown too attached to me. She should be afraid. Not relieved. And I don’t know how this happened.

I squeeze her throat, cutting off her air while she claws at my wrist. I count the seconds in my head, quietly. And then I let her go, listening as she gasps for breath and sobs beneath me.

Now, there is fear. The way it should be. But when I reach down and touch her between her legs, she is still wet for me. Soaked for me. And there is something wrong with her too.

This sweet beauty is just as fucked in the head as I am, perhaps.

It makes my chest warm, and I want to kiss her. Hold her. These are not things I should want. So I unzip my jeans instead.

Her breath halts, and she clings to my biceps.

“Javi?”

I position the head of my cock against her wetness. Her deranged need for me.

There is no more time for niceties. I plow through her virginity in one hard thrust. She bucks up against me and cries out, but still, she clings to me.

“Javi,” she whispers again.

This time, I do kiss her. Because I have to. My own disturbed need for her is getting the best of me.

That voice inside of my head tells me I’ve claimed her. I own her now. She’s mine. And nobody else will ever have her this wa

y. Nobody else will ever get to touch her this way.

She kisses me back and digs her nails into my arms as I roll my hips and fuck her into the dirt. I tell her that she is nothing in one breath, and everything in the next.

She sobs and pulls me closer, burying her face between my neck and chest. Smelling me. Covering my skin with her tears.

I take one of my dirty hands and smear it over her face before I make her kiss me again. This time, she opens her mouth and lets me inside.

My cock is swollen. So sensitive I can no longer control my thrusts. I smash into her. Fucking her hard and fast. Pulling on her hair. Biting her throat. Sucking her skin until I taste more of her blood.

She reaches up. And tries to pull my hood down. I growl and capture her wrists, pinning them above her head.

“I want to see you,” she pleads.

“What you want doesn’t matter,” I tell her.

I bite her nipple, and she cries out. In the next breath, I soothe it with my tongue.

I’m getting close. My body is alive. On edge. But it’s her next words that trigger the explosion.

“I’m not on birth control,” she cries out. “Javi, I’m not on birth control.”

I bury my cock deep inside of her, and I come. I fill her up with all of my pent-up frustrations and the sadistic part of me wonders if it will happen the first time.

“I’m not on birth control,” she repeats, and this time her voice is frantic. Terrified.

I stroke her hair. Her cheek. My dick softening inside of her.

“I know, pet.”

She shivers.

“You want me… you want me to get pregnant?”

She is horrified. And I am getting hard all over again just thinking about it.

I think of her father. How much he would hate it. And I smile.

“It would be my greatest accomplishment, Bella.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SHE IS READING when I bring her lunch. Feet curled up, bare against the velvet chair she likes. Her eyes rise to meet mine, and they are soft. Timid. Embarrassed.

This is not the girl on TV. The one who they say is arrogant and stuck up and uses her good looks to get what she wants.