My cheeks flame. “Like you’d ever get the chance.”
“Like you’d know what to do with my cock,” he spits back. “You can’t even use that pretty tongue properly. Tell me something emotional, bunny. Maybe then I’ll believe you aren’t some dry, nosy little reporter.”
“Well, you’re a criminal,” I spit back. “Aren’t you?”
“And if I am? I don’t even think you know what that fucking means.”
“I know it means you’re pathetic.”
He slaps a hand playfully over his chest. “Am I? A pathetic criminal. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“And…you’re talented. A-At drawing,” I admit. He flinches at that. Has he never heard that before? There’s probably a good reason. “Yet, you beat up old men for money.”
“And you hide behind your fucking little journal, obscuring your truth with pompous titles like Deceiver. You may snipe at me, little bunny, but you hide from the monster who’s made you so numb, don’t you? How did that story go again?”
“Get away from me.” I push him.
He shoves me back, letting his weight pin me flat. “I’ll tell you,” he says. “Someone was so damn terrified of the monster on her tail that she ‘deceived’ someone else into taking her place. That’s the shit you wrote, isn’t it? Freedom’s price paid with the blood of another. That little bunny watched another victim get bitten in her place, didn’t she?” Our gazes lock as I’m forced on my tiptoes when he pins my wrists above me.
My breaths feather as my mind shies away from the memories invoked by that particular story. The same one printed in the local paper back home. The same one haunting my every waking moment.
“You can’t even admit it, can you?” Rafe demands. He restrains me for a full second more before letting me go, but the freedom doesn’t last long. Almost instantaneously, he snatches my waist again. “Tell me, bunny…” He grazes me with his palms, chuckling when I shudder. “How hard can you bite?”
I grit my teeth. My hands are free, so I should hit him. I try, but they swipe uselessly through the air. My lips part instead. “I dare you to find out.”
A tilt of his chin is my only clue as to just how horrible a mistake I’ve just made. “Challenge accepted.” He moves in too close. Too fast. His lips are on mine before I can react, pressing, parting. And…
He tastes like ash—vile and revolting—but then his tongue slips between my lips, carrying a different taste along with it. Sweet. Spicy. Conflicting flavors that catch me off guard.
I’m so stunned, I can’t seem to bite down like my instinct warns I should.
Like he wants me to—because this is a test.
“I’ll tell you how you feel, rabbit,” he murmurs into my open mouth, sounding irritated as I remain frozen. “Jumpy. Like a virgin. Like no one has ever fucking touched you like this before. And they haven’t, have they? Not your boyfriend. Not anyone.”
Fabric kisses my hips—my jeans inching lower, guided by his ruthless touch. My attempts to stop him end with my fingers gripping his forearms, nails drawn. I let them dig in, scouring lines into the flesh. It must hurt.
But he doesn’t stop.
He groans, letting his fingers catch more of me—but not in retaliation. “You feel soft.” His voice thickens in a way that makes me shudder. It’s too deep. “I bet you taste sweet. Like flowers or some shit…”
As if to feed that curiosity, he lowers his hand. Breathless, I press my thighs together, trapping his fingers between them. He flexes them anyway, grazing more of my inner thigh each time.
I stop breathing. Thinking. As he claimed to want all along, there is only feeling… His heat, sinking into my skin. His palm, sowing that invisible fire with one stroke. Then another.
Again.
“S-Stop—”
“Why?” he counters. “Because it feels good? Look at me, rabbit,” he commands when my gaze drifts down, watching his fingers disappear beneath my fly. “You want me to stop?” His free hand snatches one of mine, forcing it down to his wrist. “Make me.”
I grip him tightly, letting my nails bite into his skin.
And I feel.
Everything. Creeping, searching fingertips. Flexing muscle and bone. Bold, hungry curiosity. All of it connected to a creature I can’t control or anticipate.
He’s not the monster I spent my entire life training to fear.
This beast asks for permission first. “Show me how to touch you,” he commands, but his voice sounds bitten out. Angry. Irritated. He has to make me move. React.
Show him.
I try to push him off, but somewhere between my hand and my brain, the signals mix up. I push. He pulls.
I gasp.
With every move I make, he interprets the motions in all the wrong ways. Like I’m goading him. Telling him how. Pressure here. There. Lower…
My panties are a teasing barrier, the lace dragging over my skin, warmed by his touch. Over and over again. With every stroke, my breaths feather, and my brain shuts down. There’s no room for shame or alarm in the tiny sliver of consciousness I have left.
Just breathing. Sensation.
Survival—whatever it takes to play his game. He toys with me, letting his fingers drag over the gusset of my panties, teasing me with their weight—the pressure. The inherent wrongness their presence brings…
“W-Wait,” I rasp, struggling to remember…something. This is wrong. Just when my senses start to return, he flexes his wrist, stroking along the flesh between my legs. Just once.
And my nerves go haywire. My hips jerk, then my lips part, allowing a startled sound I’ve never heard myself make before escape.
An answering growl revs in his throat. “Shit…” He bucks against me, splaying my legs around his hand—all chance of escape vanishes. I can’t move, and any air in my lungs dissipates, leaving me devoid of a scream.
In silence and tension, I suffocate as one thick finger hooks beneath the lace shielding me, letting him underneath without permission. I flinch, gripping his shoulder, my mouth open, my throat dry.
I swear a refusal forms on my tongue.
Only to die in the face of his startled grunt as his finger continues its search of me unabated. “You’re wet?” He says it like it’s some rare, terrible, dirty thing. Something so unexpected, it makes him press his mouth against my shoulder as if to keep the confession inside. But he can’t. “Fuck. You’re so fucking wet…”
“S-Stop!” My face is on fire, embarrassment so thick I cringe, clamping my knees together. But then I see his face, how those eyes are unfocused for once. As if from miles away, I hear him grunt, then feel his fingers twitch again. Stroke. Caress.
Ignite.
My head rears back against my shoulders, my eyes staring toward the sky. I stop thinking. Caring.
It feels…
Good. So damn good. It’s as if every stroke feeds some inner part of me I never knew existed. Every bit of friction enhances my perception, alerting me to each nerve connected to my spine. Every quivering bit of muscle drawn taut by his touch.
“Fuck…” His mouth attaches to my neck, his teeth scraping as in punishment. I’m making him reckless. Ruthless. With unsteady motions, he cups me against his palm. Rubbing. Harder. More. More.