Page 63 of Prey

And then he’d take me anyway.

Both things are true.

I let my body go still. This is a long game. Tonight is one move in it.

“Smart girl,” he says, reading my stillness. “Shh.” The sound is soothing, gentle, at odds with the way he’s holding me immobile. “I’m not going to hurt you, beautiful. I’m going to take you home and remind you why you belong in my bed.”

His cock throbs against my ass, hot and hard and demanding. The piercing—I can feel the shape of it through his clothes, that curved barbell that drove me insane with need. My body remembers how it felt inside me, dragging against places inside me I never knew existed.

“Of course, I’ll have to sedate you for transport,” he murmurs against my ear, voice casual like he’s discussing the weather. “Can’t have you trying to escape again during the drive.”

His free hand reaches into his jacket, and I catch a glimpse of a syringe. The same kind he used before, when he first took me from my apartment three months ago.

“But maybe,” his voice drops lower, becomes rougher, “maybe while you’re unconscious, I’ll take what’s mine. Fill you up properly. Make sure you wake up dripping with my cum, sore from being thoroughly used.”

The moan escapes before I can stop it. Heat floods my core at the image—being taken while helpless, being claimed while I can’t resist or pretend I don’t want it. Waking up marked, used, full of him in the most intimate way possible.

My knees buckle slightly, and his arm tightens around my waist to keep me upright.

“Oh, you like that idea, don’t you?” Dark satisfaction colors his voice. “The thought of being fucked while you can’t fight it. Can’t pretend you don’t want my cock splitting you open.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, mortified by my body’s reaction. By the shameful heat that spreads through my belly at the thought of being violated while unconscious.

What’s wrong with me? What sick person gets aroused by the idea of being drugged and raped? Even if it’s by someone who?—

“There’s my good girl,” he growls, reading my response in the way my body melts against him. “Still so responsive. Still so eager for what I can give you.”

His other hand is still on the syringe, but he hasn’t moved it toward me yet. He’s waiting. Watching me.

“Do it,” I whisper.

His body goes still behind me. “Say that again.”

“Do it. While I’m out.” My voice steadies as I say it, even as the rest of me shakes. “I want to wake up knowing you couldn’t wait.”

The sound he makes through the mask is barely human. His cock throbs against my back, and his grip on me changes—no longer just restraint. Something else now. Reverence.

“Jenna.” My name, through the mask, has a destroyed quality. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

I do. God help me, I do. Three months of telling myself I was building a life and knowing, every single morning when I woke up with my hand between my legs and his name on my tongue, that I was waiting. Three months of staying in his city when I could have run anywhere in the world. Three months of murdering his competition like I was clearing the field for him to find me.

I’m so tired of lying.

“I want you to fuck me while I’m unconscious.” The words come out clearer this time. “I want to wake up sore and full of you. I want to know you had me. That’s what I want.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Please. Before I lose my nerve.”

The hand on my throat gentles. His other hand brings the syringe up slowly enough that I could pull away if I changed my mind. I don’t pull away.

“You’re sure,” he says. Not a question. A last offer.

“I’m sure.”

The needle slides in then—soft, almost gentle, the pinch at my neck no worse than a thought. His other hand strokes my throat as the room starts to blur at the edges.

“You’re mine,” he tells me, holding me up as my knees go. “You’ve always been mine. And tonight I’m going to give you exactly what you asked for.”