to ignore.
And now I had her trapped, at my mercy. I could do anything I wanted.
My tongue flicked out for one last taste before I caught her clit between my lips to lap at it and suck.
Lisbeth’s mouth opened on a moan that alone could make me come, just that sound enough to turn my pulse into a war drum. Her knees squeezed the sides of my head, her body shaking as she came apart on an orgasm that had the power to rattle me as much as her. The taste flooded my tongue with a decadence that should have been illegal.
I breathed her in one last time before glancing up her body. Running my hand up her stomach and between her breasts, I wrapped my fingers around a throat I’d wanted to strangle more times than I could count.
Pushing up until I was hovering above her, I stared at her face while she was still coming down, her breath a bare rasp over parted lips that I sealed closed with mine.
My fingers squeezed, and I stole the air from her, an idle threat, a wicked promise.
Her skin would bruise again. I knew that. It was too fair not to carry my mark. But I couldn’t care. Couldn’t stop. I released her mouth to bite her shoulder. Her chest arched up as her lips parted to steal a breath.
I released her throat when panic flooded her body, shoved my pants down with one hand and grabbed her breast with another. And while she coughed to finally have air fill her lungs again, I drove myself inside her, her cunt clutching me, desperate to be filled, greedy.
She surprised me with her raspy words. “Again. Do it again.”
My head snapped up, and I met her sultry stare, my hips going still while my cocked remained sheathed inside her.
I spoke carefully in response.
“You like that edge, don’t you? The one between life and death.”
Lisbeth nodded, insanity behind her eyes.
In that we were the same. I loved it, too. A little too much.
My hand closed over her throat tenderly, my hips moving in slow circles that shoved her body up with each thrust. It took restraint to tease her, to push deep and pull away again.
Thumb sweeping down the center of her neck, I tempted her with death as well.
Fuck, the way she shivered made my cock throb, the beat of her panting breath forced my teeth together.
“I would have thought a spoiled brat would fear losing control.”
She smiled, the expression brilliant, surprising.
“Like I ever had control in the first place. But you’re fighting back for once. It’s all I ever wanted.”
My hips stopped, confusion tugging my brows together. My hand was a feather touch over her throat.
“What did you say?” My voice was a razor’s edge, too controlled, too soft.
Her lips slammed together, eyes wide. A shake of her head was her only answer.
My thumb pressed down on her pulse. It was a dangerous place, that artery. Press hard enough and you can stop the flow of oxygen to someone’s brain.
My mouth dropped to hers as I teased that spot.
“Tell me what you said before I knock your ass out and carry you down to the dungeon.”
Her eyes locked on mine, terror rolling through them. And then she swallowed, the muscles working beneath my hand.
“When we were kids, when I was so mean to you. I wanted you to fight.”
Rage flooded my veins, pure and undiluted. She’d tortured me as some stupid game? She’d threatened my mother’s job because she wanted me to do something I couldn’t?
I wasn’t sure she knew the significance of what she told me, but it had been a serious mistake.
“You shouldn’t have told me that.”
Lisbeth trembled. She was smart to fear me, but so fucking stupid for thinking her cutesy, brat intentions would make me forgive her for what she’d done.
What was a game to her had been torture for me.
Releasing her throat, I pulled my cock free of her body, stood from the bed and stormed into my bathroom. Slamming the door shut while she fought against her restraints and called out for me, I punched a wall and stepped into the shower.
Hot water soothed me, my cock deflating as anger danced in to replace the lust.
The fucking bitch.
My palm slammed against the tile as my forehead came down against the cool stone, my lips parting on an exhale that carried with it all the pain of a tortured childhood, my mother’s worry of losing her job,