His tone had changed from pissed to belligerent like a child speaking to an authority figure. He didn’t talk about our fight; he spoke of yet another issue inside him. Something I would never understand.

“I’m not asking for your compliance. You don’t have to obey me. You were strong enough to seek pleasure. You were the one who controlled me in the greenhouse. Your fingers, your touch, you consumed me. You can do it again.”

A smidgen of fight left him and his shoulders sank. “I—” He looked away before gritting his teeth. “I don’t trust myself to try again. No matter how much I want to.” His eyes flew up, locking on my naked breasts. “Fuck, how I want to.”

My heart fluttered with delicate wings. He wanted me. He wanted what I did.

He wanted me all the while keeping his distance to protect me. My heart thudded harder, forcing more lustful blood through my system.

Fox stood glowering, chest pumping, the front of his trousers tenting with arousal. “Put your clothes back on.”

I shook my head. “I want to fuck you, that’s why I’m taking my clothes off. You should try it. It makes the whole experience that much more enjoyable.”

Picking up the knife on the bedspread, I deliberately cut the lace on my hips, letting my knickers flutter to the floor. Standing naked before him, I murmured, “Let me undress you. Let me touch and kiss you. Let me see what you’re hiding beneath all that black.”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen. Your bruises are only just fading. What if I kill you next time? You’ve forgiven me for so much. Don’t ask me to hurt you more.”

Annoyance chased my need and I kneeled on the bed, crawling toward him. “I haven’t forgiven you. I’ll never get over you strangling me half to death. But I don’t care because you owe me. You owe me another orgasm. You owe me to let me try and help you.”

I reached the side of his bed, and he backed away. I climbed to my feet, advancing.

Keeping the same amount of distance between us, Fox moved backward, heading toward the seating area by the windows.

While we danced across the room, I gave myself over to my insanely foolish plan. My feet moved toward him as I began my idiotic seduction. “Working beside you makes my heart pound…” I swirled my fingertip on the swell of my breast, directly above my heart. “Here.”

Another step toward him. “Talking to you makes my breath come faster, dragging your smoky scent into my lungs…” I pressed my fist against my solar plexus. “Here.”

Fox waged a battle, his face flickering with so many thoughts. Every step that took me closer to him, I feared he’d snap and kill me, but I never stopped.

“Staring at your lips makes me fantasise about you kissing me.” I trailed my finger across my parted mouth. “Here.” Every part of me sparked and fizzled and pinpricked with need.

Fox shook his head, eyes shadowing with urges I didn’t comprehend.

Dropping my fingers, I tugged on the bar bell through my right nipple. “I want your mouth here.” My hand drifted lower, trickling over the chain, darting over my caesarean scar from Clara, and boldly going between my legs. “I want your tongue here.” I gasped as my finger swirled my clit.

The back of Fox’s knees connected against a chair; he slammed into it. His hand clutched at his erection, almost unconsciously, his gaze raking over me greedily.

My vision darkened as bubbles of lust sprang into a wrecking ball of desire. “I want to feel you deep inside me. I want to hear you groan and pant and moan as you plunge deeper and deeper.”

He swallowed hard, his throat contracted with fear. “I’m—you’re, fuck me, Hazel.” His snowy eyes flinted to dark grey, erupting a flurry of need in my stomach. “I want you so fucking much. Do you know how hard it’s been keeping my distance and then you go and practically beg me to plunge inside you? I have self-control but I’m not a saint.”

Wetness trickled at his confession; my heart burst with hope. “Please, Fox. I am begging. I need you to make me come again.”

His jaw locked as his hands fumbled at his fly. In a matter of seconds, he undid the material and shoved them around his thighs. His glistening, rock-hard erection sprang free, only to be captured by a brutal unforgiving hand.

He pumped himself demonically, eyes wild. “Touch yourself. Make yourself come.”

My fingers turned harsher on my skin, adopting the same violence Fox used on himself. “I’ll do anything you want if it means you’ll get naked and make love to me.”

He groaned, hand slowing to a tantalizing stroke on his hard length. “I can’t.”

Biting my lip, I slid two fingers between my legs. My eyes swam with passion; I breathed, “You have to get naked at some point. That’s what sex is, Fox. The joining of two bodies. The joy of exploring each other, touching, stroking, licking, tasting—”

He cut me off. “I don’t need to be naked.” His gaze fell to his lap. “Only this.” His face darkened as his hand stroked defiantly. The glint in his eye looked like he expected me to tell him to stop pleasuring himself. The tilt of his chin spoke of bravado for rubbing the silky hot flesh between his legs.

I couldn’t take my eyes of his cock already glistening with a bead of pre-cum. My heart raced as his breathing picked up.

“Imagine your fingers are my fingers. What would I do to you?”

My nipples tingled at the power in his voice. The domination laced with uncertainty and harsh desire.

A blush warmed my cheeks at the thought of acting out my fantasies. He watched me with such scrutiny. My body wasn’t perfect. I’d carried a child. I’d lost weight from stress and couldn’t hide the silver lines of stretch marks on my lower stomach. The list of my insecurities raced in my head, dousing my arousal.

“Stop thinking and do it.” Fox ran a thumb over the top of his cock, deliberately taunting me, smearing the drop of moisture.

I moved forward till my knees almost brushed his. His eyes fell to my pussy; his face etched with stress, the scar livid on his cheek.

“You’d push two fingers deep, feeling my heat, loving my wetness,” I whispered. “You’d work me just like you did in the greenhouse. You touched me like an expert. I want you to do it again.”

His throat moved as he swallowed. His quads tensed, cock rippling in his hand.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I stood transfixed, never taking my eyes off his slow assault on his erection, entranced by the small edge of control he had left on his violent nature.

The element of real danger dampened, but also accelerated my teeth-clenching need for him. If I touched him now, I doubted my tiny knives could fend him off. Obeying him was a matter of life and death.

“What else,” he murmured. “What else would I do to you?”

My blood thrilled, nipples hardened painfully. “You’d lick my clit and taste how wet I was. You’d kiss my inner thigh and bite.” I pinched my clit, so, so close to giving in to the spindling orgasm pulsing in my blood.

“I want to watch you come apart. I want to see you pant and tremble. I want you to imagine me sinking deep inside. Hard and fast and taking everything from you.” His voice rasped, sounding like pure sex.

Brazenly, I cupped my breasts, rolling my pebbled nipples. I forgot about being a mother or being responsible. I focused only on the sexy dangerous male watching me as if I could ruin him with one word.

I gave myself to him.

I lost myself to sin.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful. Sweet and utter fucking perfection,” Fox grunted, working his cock harder.

The fire in my blood raced like an inferno, incinerating my core.

My throat slammed closed; my eyes fluttered shut on their own accord. Fox successfully intoxicated me—made me drunk on desire for him. Feeling lightheaded, I swayed forward, craving his hands on me.

I loved holding his complete attention. Too often his eyes swam with ghosts and demons, never fully centred in the present.

Everything I’d agreed to, everything that I was, disappeared. It was just me and him—the world stood still. The connection between us grew.

Friendship.

Companionship.

But I wanted more. So much more.

Trailing my fingers from breasts to pussy, I cried out as Fox suddenly sat upright. His heavy hands landed on my hips, holding me still. The way he devoured me with his gaze didn’t make me conscious. It empowered me. It enriched me.

His eyes glowed white as, with no hesitation, he forced my legs apart and thrust a finger deep inside. I moaned loudly, shivering with need.

“Come for me. Fuck my hand, Zel. Fuck it.” Fox inserted another finger, and with his grip on my side, forced me to ride his hand.

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to collapse onto his lap. I wanted him to fill me, but all I could do was stand there and preform a miracle by coming and not touching him for balance. I’d enjoyed what he’d given me in the greenhouse, but I wanted more than that. I needed full body contact. I craved it.

But he gave me no choice.

His finger twisted inside, focusing on the extra sensitive area. His thumb pressed and swirled on my clit and every atom in my body self-imploded. He was a fast learner and the orgasm tore through me, rupturing my heart, seizing my muscles, shredding my womb with every pulsating release.

On and on, he fucked me with his fingers until the last ebb squeezed my entire body dry. I forgot where I was. I forgot who I was with. I tumbled forward into his arms and touched him.

Life went from heaven to hell in an instant.

Fox shoved me to the ground, tearing his fingers from me. I bounced off the carpet, my eyes flying wide as he loomed above me.

Gone was the lust and need and softness, replaced with sheer trembling rage. Cold calculation filled his eyes until he looked blind from everything else but the urge to kill.

“Fox. Wait.” I tried to scramble backward toward my discarded knife.

He fell to his knees, and with excruciatingly strong hands, flipped me onto all fours. Pushing my shoulder blades, he forced my cheek against the carpet and captured my arms behind my back. I squirmed, trying to get free, but it was impossible. “Fox. Stop. Please.”

“Shut up. To be inflicted is to inflict.” His voice was programmed—robotic. “I must obey. I must—”

My heart bolted, bringing with it terror and trepidation. His tone was military cold, remote and unfeeling. He’d relapsed and there was nothing I could do.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I begged, “Please… do—”

Then, he fucked me.

His hard cock plunged deep inside, filling me, distorting me. The wetness from my orgasm prevented searing pain, but the fierceness of every thrust made me ache instantly with bruises.

He grunted and rutted like a fucking beast. Fingers digging deep into my hips, jerking me back to meet his every surge.

I didn’t want him like this. Not again. It was like a horrible flashback of the first time. The violence, the way he seemed to hate that he needed me—hate the weakness of wanting to join.

My back bowed as he thrust deeper and deeper. My eyes leaked, adding salt to my stinging carpet-burned cheek. I hated him. Hated the brokenness inside him.

“I told you. I warned you. You didn’t fucking listen. Now look what you made me do. I can’t stop it. Goddammit, I can’t stop.” He drove into me like a monster. He was big. Too big. It wasn’t erotic or fun. It was purely punishment and nothing else. My heart broke, hating his coldness. Hating him for making me hope that he could be fixed.

Fox cursed in a foreign language. His hipbones dug into my ass, faster and faster.

I sniffed back my tears and hardened my heart. I was wrong to think we had anything special. Fox had eloquently shown me how stupid I truly was. It was over. I was done. This would be the last time he hurt me.

Shutting my emotions down, I let him fuck me. I switched off every sensation and waited for it to be over. I preferred to ignore what was happening and pretended none of this existed.

You brought this on yourself.

I told myself to shut up. I’d only done what I thought might work. I poured all my effort into him only to be thwarted in the worst possible way.

His hips thrust harder and instead of trying to get away, I pushed back, deliberately impaling him harder.

He gasped. “Fuck. Fuck. Oh, God.”

Wanting it over, I squeezed my inner muscles around him, rocking back, giving him everything I had left.