Cellar Door

“You’re going to have to kill me for it.”

I try to wrestle my other hand free—I need both hands to hold the knife—but he tightens his hold on my wrist.

“You can do it. Go ahead. Break the skin. Bear down hard enough so you cut the bone and sever the carotid. I promised you that you’d get to take my life. It’s yours. But you have to promise me that you won’t stop with me. Take your revenge, then confront Jennifer Myer. If you end me here, you’ll owe me that. Make her pay for what was done to my sister. If you can promise me that, I won’t fight you. I’ll make this an easy kill.”

“How is murder ever easy, you bastard?” I can feel the tears welling, and I bite them back. My emotions aren’t matching what I feel…but I don’t know what I feel.

“You’re shaking,” Luke says. “You’re scared.”

I huff a derisive laugh.

“What do you want, Makenna?”

I shake my head against the cot. “To be free.”

“To be free of what?”

I’m tired of being scared, of questioning my past, of questioning everything. If surrendering control means freeing myself of pain and fear, then I have to face my demons. And I’m looking right into the one of those demon’s eyes now.

“If I open that door, where will you go? What will you do?”

I close my eyes. The hot trail of tears slides across my temple. “Someone has to pay.”

His coarse thumb rakes the tender skin of my wrist. “I’m tired of paying,” he says. “And I think you’ve paid enough.”

I release a shallow breath, my chest heavy. His free hand touches my waist; the backs of his fingers graze the sensitive skin of my hip, sending an electric current through my body, a livewire threading every nerve ending. The monster is still here. I see him in the defiant blue flame of his eyes. Luke will make them pay.

My revenge…it doesn’t belong to me. It’s not mine to own.

As soon as I realize this, the weight in my chest lifts. I’m not a victim; I won’t let Hudson make me a victim.

I remove the knife from Luke’s neck and lay my hand back above my head. Giving him permission. He grazes his hand up along my ribs, a delicate advance over my skin, until he reaches the hand still clutching the knife. His large palm covers mine.

“Say it.” His mouth is lower now, close to mine. His heated words a dare against my lips. “I won’t move an inch until you say it.”

I know what he needs to hear, but my voice is trapped. He’s not the same as the men who put us here, who destroyed us. Who made us these fiends, and yet I can’t say this to him, because I still see him in the storm, blue eyes fierce, as he takes a life.

He steals the knife from my hand and brings it next to my face. The blade doesn’t touch me, but it’s no less threatening. “You trust me?”

“No. Never.”

He halts.

I release a breath. “The only man I trusted enough to touch me was wrong. He defiled me. I was young, untouched. Hudson can’t be the last man to ever have touched me.” I lick my lips. “I want the memory of that last night erased.”

Luke’s gaze seers me. “First I’m a monster, now I’m a saint? You don’t think I want to defile you? I want to do bad, bad things to you, Makenna. I’m no fucking saint.”

And I can feel just how badly he wants to do those things. I undulate my hips beneath him, the rough seam of his jeans catches on my sheer panties, and I feel…all the control. This beast of a man towers over me, dominant in every way, and yet I’m the one holding the power over him.

I can sense he’s on the brink, desire to fight his carnal cravings waning. I arch my back, and watch the way his teeth sink into his bottom lip as he struggles to maintain control.

I move my hand slowly toward his face. He tries to pull away, but I touch him. I trace the scars there reverently. Feeling the way the skin bevels, how deeply each slash dug. “I wear my scars inside,” I say, as my fingers rest at his lips.

His mouth catches my fingers, teeth taking hold, then his soft lips nip. He releases me as he says, “And how fucked up do you think giving yourself to me will make you?”

I can still feel Hudson’s hands on me in the car. He was always gentle, tender. I thought…because he loved me. But now, maybe, it was something else. Just thinking about what he really wanted, what he did in secret—the sadistic and merciless way he tortured his victims… My mind wanders to the darkest place. So much darker than this cellar. And I have to make it stop.

“I need to know what it feels like to be wanted,” I say. “Sick…depraved…I don’t care, as long as you want me.”