Hurting You (Blackthorn Elite 3)

“I’m not lying. I won’t hurt her, so long as she keeps her mouth shut and leaves me alone.” Cam seems frustrated, but he doesn’t say anything else, and before he slips out of the room, I ask, “When are you leaving?”

“Now,” he answers, his tone clipped. A short time later, I hear him pulling out of the driveway, so I jump out of bed and leave the room to make sure Stella isn’t up to anything she shouldn’t be. I check Cam’s room first, which is empty before walking out into the living room. As soon as I enter the room, I see her sitting there on the sectional, staring out the window. I have half a second before she notices me, but that half-second of staring at her is enough to make my heart beat out of my chest.

Our gazes collide, and angry fire ripples through my veins. I hate how she makes me feel. I hate that she has this power over me. Breaking the moment between us, I turn around and walk into the kitchen. Heading for the cabinet, I pull out a glass and place it on the counter, before moving toward the fridge.

“Cam said not to talk to you, but…”

“Obviously, you have a hard time listening,” I growl. Her voice does something to me. It awakens the beast, it makes me crave her, it makes me want to possess and mark every inch of her flesh. Like she’s mine.

Her bare feet pad against the floor, and I can hear her moving behind me. She should know never to corner a monster. Never to try and reason with the unreasonable.

“I didn’t mean to disobey. I just wanted to see…” The sound of nails on a chalkboard fills my ears, and I grab the glass I placed on the counter and smash it on the floor, wanting to make the noise disappear, wanting to make her shut up.

“I don’t care what your excuse was. You broke our fucking trust,” I yell, my throat throbbing as the words push from it.

Stella’s angelic face turns stoic, and I can see the fear trickling into her features like a leak in the ceiling. Drip by slow drip. I’m vibrating with anger, trying to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do next when she drops down to her knees and starts to pick up the broken pieces of glass.

What the fuck?

“What are you doing?”

Looking up at me through thick lashes, she says, “Picking up the broken glass.”

I don’t know why but I snap and tug her up off the floor by her arm. She gasps and then winces as the pieces of glass in her hand fall back to the floor, shattering into even tinier pieces. Grabbing her by the hips, I place her ass on the edge of the counter. I’m not gentle as I do so either, and I know she’ll probably have bruises where I’ve touched her, but I can’t bother to be gentle with her, not when I want to shake her, rip out her perfectly, sweet heart.

In this position, we’re eye level with each other, and as she looks at me with both fear and desire in her eyes, I grapple with my need to either destroy or claim her. She’s ruined me, claimed a part of me that I’ve never given to anyone else, and she’s done so without even knowing it. As I look down her body, ready to rip her clothes off and ravage her, my eyes catch on something red. Blood. Her finger is bleeding and all because she tried to make herself the heroine by picking up the broken pieces of glass.

“It’s just a tiny cut,” she murmurs, her gaze dropping down to her hand. I grab onto the finger and bring it to my lips. The blood beads against the tip of her finger, it’s a tiny cut, much smaller than the one she’s inflicted upon me with her betrayal.

“Yesterday, you destroyed my trust in you. Today, you find a way to earn it back.”

“I didn’t mean to…” She starts but I cut her off by wrapping my other hand around her throat. If the darkness in my eyes doesn’t shut her up, that certainly will. I rub her finger over my bottom lip. The warmth of her blood on my skin teases the beast that lingers just beneath the surface. Our gazes collide, we’re fire and gasoline, and as soon as we touch, we’ll blow up the entire fucking world.

Letting my tongue dart out over my bottom lip, I lick the coppery tang away. The taste of her blood excites me, and my barely-there resolve shatters. In a second, I have her over my shoulder as I walk us toward my bedroom.

Once over the threshold, I toss her down on the bed and start ripping her clothes off.