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I’d known when he spun me around with his sights on a man he wanted dead, a knife in each hand, and hadn’t so much as touched me. I’d known the morning in his shower when he’d stopped me from slamming into the wall, letting me fall gently against it instead, even though his movements had never seemed to slow.
No matter what took over his mind, he was always there. And he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
He just needed to trust himself.
“Why are you pushing this?” he finally asked, his words ragged. “Why are you pushing what you shouldn’t? Why can’t you be content with what I can give you?”
I took a few slow, calculated steps toward him. “Because you know me. And I know you. I know you’re not afraid of anything except what’s inside you.”
The muscle in his jaw twitched, his fingers moving restlessly as he waited to see where I was going with that.
“I hate being weak. I hate being afraid. But my demons make me both. You’re the only one I would trust with those fractured pieces of me.”
His chest hitched. His eyes pleaded with me not to do this.
But I could see the need slowly creeping back in.
“Tell me not to do this,” he begged.
I shook my head slowly as I dropped the chain so it was only hanging from one hand.
“Take control.” My body rebelled, begging me to take back the words. “Face me. Don’t fight what happens in your mind. I trust you.”
When he took the last step to close the distance between us, his eyes were dark with need and desire, but his face was twisted with pain. “If I hurt you—”
“Just because my mind is fractured doesn’t mean I’m breakable.” I trailed my free hand down his chest, digging my nails in harder the farther I went. “I like it when you’re rough.”
A groan crawled up his throat in response.
He took the chain from me, feeling its weight in his hands for a second before grabbing my hands and pulling them forward. Curling my fingers into fists, he squeezed my hands before releasing them.
His intense stare met and held mine as he slowly wound the chain around my wrist. Once, twice, tugging gently when he drifted to the other wrist and then back again until only a couple inches of the chain hung from each side.
My fear and excitement were growing, both trying to outweigh the other.
The tremors steadily grew with each achingly slow movement he made.
One of his hands pressed to my chest, his strong, lethal fingers digging in ever so slightly as he stood there. Waiting.
And then the corner of his mouth twitched into a wicked grin.
He moved so fast I didn’t have time to prepare, didn’t have time to scream.
One second we were standing, the next he was forcing me back with nothing but his hand on my chest. My hair flew forward around me and the air rushed from my lungs. At the last instant, everything slowed so I landed against the wall as though I’d purposefully stepped back against it.
His face was there, directly in front of my own with that damn grin that was making my stomach heat and knees weak. His nose dipped along mine and his mouth brushed across my jaw as his fingers dragged down my chest so slowly and with such a teasing amount of pressure that I was already writhing against the wall.
“You want this?” he asked, his voice rougher than I’d ever heard it before.
I nodded, trying to reach his kiss despite how he held me back.
“If I hurt you . . . if you need me to stop . . . don’t scream.”
I looked into his murderous stare, trying to understand what he wasn’t saying.
With a slow curl of his mouth, he said, “That part of me might like it.”
And then he stopped breathing.
