"Yes." It comes out barely audible.
"I don't think you do." His grip tightens, and pain blooms sharp and bright where he's pressing too hard. "Let me be very clear, Valerie. Mila is all I have left. She is the only thing in this world I care about more than my own survival. And if you, through malice or carelessness or whatever game you're playing, cause her pain?"
He leans closer, until his face is inches from mine. Until I can see the pale ring around his irises, count the individual scars on his face, smell the coffee on his breath mixing with cologne and violence.
"I will break every bone in your body. Slowly. One at a time. Keep you alive through all of it so you feel every second. Then, when there's nothing left to break, I'll make it hurt worse. Much worse. Do. You. Understand?"
"Yes." I'm crying silently now, unable to stop because I’m definitely going to die trying to save my mom and brother. Hot tears roll down my face. "Yes, I understand."
"Good girl." But he doesn't release me. His thumb drags across my jaw, rough, possessive, claiming and heat floods through me despite the threat, despite the pain blooming under his grip, despite everything screaming that I should be terrified and nothing else.
My nipples tighten against my uniform. Sharp and obvious. Wetness pools between my thighs, warm and slick, and I want to die from the shame of it.
His eyes drop to my chest, he notices, of course he fucking notices and something dark and hungry flickers across his face.
"You're afraid of me." Not a question. Statement of fact.
"Yes."
"But that's not all you're feeling right now, is it?"
I don't answer. Can't form words past the shame choking me.
His thumb moves to my bottom lip, pressing down hard enough that I taste copper where the skin splits. The pain should make me want to pull away. Instead, my breath catches in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
"Your body knows what you won't admit." His voice drops lower, intimate and threatening. "That fear and desire aren't as different as you'd like to believe. That sometimes they're exactly the same thing."
"That’s… that’s not true."
"Oh?" He says it almost fondly. His grip on my jaw tightens, pain shooting through me sharp and bright, and my breath hitches in a way I can't control. "You're wet right now. I can see it in how you're standing. How your thighs are pressed together like you're trying to hide what's happening between them. How your breath keeps catching."
Another wave of shame floods through me, hot and overwhelming. "Please—"
What the actual fuck? I did not just say that.
Please?
"Please what?" His face is so close now I can feel his words against my lips. "Please stop? Or please don't stop?"
I don't answer because I genuinely don't know which one I mean.
His hand moves from my jaw to my throat—not squeezing, just resting there, feeling my pulse hammer against his palm like a trapped bird.
"If I slid my hand under your skirt right now," he murmurs, and the words make everything inside me clench, "would I find you dripping? Would you gasp or moan or both?"
Both. Heaven help me, you’ll find both.
"Answer me, Valerie."
"I don't know." It comes out strangled. "I'm not—this isn't—"
"Your body's already answered." His thumb presses against my pulse point, feeling how it races. "You can lie with your words all you want. Your body tells me the truth."
Heat floods my face. My chest. Lower. I am wet, soaking, my underwear damp, my thighs slick, and I want to disappear, want to die from the humiliation of wanting this man who terrifies me, who threatens me, who I'm supposed to betray.
"This is what you don't understand yet." His hand slides from my throat to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. "The fear makes it better. Sharper. You're so alive right now, you can barely stand it. And part of you, the part you're ashamed of, wants more."
"No—"
