Lust slams into me like I’ve run into a brick wall. “This is all b-because you want to make me happy?”
“Yes. You are mine, Lainey. I knew it from the moment I saw you. And again when you spoke to me.” His scarred lips twitch. “Maybe most of all when you broke the lamp over my head.”
Once again, a giggle escapes. “No fair, making me laugh when I’m supposed to be escaping,” I whisper, taking in his mostly hidden features, his giant chest full of unruly black hair and crisscrossed scars. I’m dying to know how his entire body ended up scarred, but I’m afraid to ask right now, lest it make me want to surrender my independence so I can make him happy, instead of myself. “Carver, there’s only one way this will work.”
Did I really just say those words out loud?
Yes. Yes, I did. I’m negotiating a relationship with an eight-foot-tall behemoth nicknamed The Butcher. How’s that for a kick in the ass?
He looks dubious. “How?”
“If you want me to be happy, you have to let me go. You have to trust that I’ll come back to you.”
“No.” He stands and starts to pace, still holding me in his arms. “No, princess. You ask for something I can’t give.”
Wet moisture presses behind my eyelids. “Then I’ll be sad. I’ll keep trying to escape.” He makes a pained sound, his chest beginning to lift and shudder. It hurts me, right in the center of my being. Deep in my bones.
If he’s making me feel things I’ve never experienced—desire, yearning, fear of losing him—despite the fact that he literally abducted me…this connection between us isn’t one sided. Is it? He thinks I’m made for him, and with my stomach in knots over the prospect of us being parted…I’m beginning to wonder if that’s not such an outlandish possibility. If that’s true, then I can’t just write him off. My heart protests over the very idea of leaving him in misery. So I have to try and reason with him. Have to do some convincing.
“Carver?” I reach up and brush my fingers over his lips. “Can you set me down for a second?”
He makes an uncertain sound in his throat, but his eyelids droop at my touch. “Does your head feel okay?”
“Yes. It’s only a scratch.”
Shifting on his feet for a few seconds, he finally does what I ask. He stands in front of me, looking consumed. By me. As if he doesn’t know whether to kneel and beg or throw me over his shoulder and take me captive again. My nipples go hard over the thought, even as my mind rebels. No, this thing with Carver has to be on my terms or I’ll never be able to live with myself.
I press a finger into the center of his massive chest and push. There’s no way in hell I could move him an inch, even if I threw my entire weight into him, but he must take pity on me, because he sits down on the same tree stump we sat on before. And I waste no time cupping my breasts, watching his jaw go slack, his moan raising goosebumps all down my arms.
Convince him letting you go is right. Convince him you’ll come back.
“I’m your little princess, Carver. Aren’t I?”
Chapter Six
Carver
I’m your little princess, Carver. Aren’t I?
Lainey is either trying to seduce me or I’ve passed on to some incredible afterlife. With her beautiful hair glowing in the moonlight and her breasts peaked for my attention, she could easily be an angel waiting at the gates to give me that final judgment. My cock is straining in my pants, but I’m afraid to reach down and set it free in case she disappears or stops moving toward me in that slow, swaying way. This amazing girl is coming toward me. A beast.
When I stole her from the camp, I never thought it possible that she would stop screaming long enough to speak with me. Kiss me. God, did she really kiss me? The impossible has happened and we’ve gotten…closer. Not just physically, either. She’s let me into her thoughts, told me about her past. My perfect mate isn’t just the object of my obsessive lust. I know her mind now. And now I’m obsessed with that, too. Want to know every tiny idea that occurs to her, and I want to know now.
Letting her go, though? No. No. NO.
How can I ever consider this? She’ll never return on her own. Why would she? I’m the man who took her hostage and almost fucked her without a goddamn consideration for her comfort. She just ran away from me. Even now, she could be playing me. Lulling me into a false sense of security by offering me this fantasy of watching her touch herself, watching her approach me instead of turning away in disgust.