Page 161 of Hard Bargain

Dominic barked out a laugh. “You think because I didn’t drag you back immediately, I released you?”

Knox frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Dominic said, each word deliberate, “that I know the route you walk every morning. The bench you sit on by the cliffs. The market where you wander when you can’t sleep. The old man you spoke to outside the bakery.”

Knox stared, unable to breathe. “You had me followed?”

“I protect what belongs to me.”

“You’re insane.”

Dominic looked utterly unbothered. “I know.”

Knox shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Dominic stepped closer. “Yes, you do.” And then the darkness in him showed its teeth.

“If you run again, I will follow. If you hide, I will find you. And if you try to convince yourself you belong anywhere beyond my reach, I will ruin that illusion too.”

Knox should have been horrified.

Maybe he was.

But standing in the dark, held in a pull that was monstrous and intimate at once, he understood that the most dangerous thing wasn’t Dominic’s possessiveness. It was how every hidden, starving part of him responded to it. “What do you want from me?” he whispered.

“Everything.”

Knox gasped as the word settled between them.

“I want your fear,” Dominic continued. “Your hunger. Your devotion. Your surrender. Every part of you that still believes it can remain separate from me.”

Knox’s knees felt weak. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”

A dangerous smile touched Dominic’s mouth. “I don’t care.”

Dominic shifted and the gate light slid across his throat.

Knox froze.

There, beneath Dominic’s ear—a dark mark. Without thinking, Knox lifted a trembling hand and touched it.

Ink.

A clover.

In the exact place the brand had been burned into Knox’s own flesh. His breath caught. “Why would you…”

Dominic didn’t move under his touch. “He hurt you because of me. I won’t let you carry that mark alone.” His voice sounded almost reverent.

Knox touched the clover on his own neck, then the tattoo on Dominic’s. “We match.”

Dominic’s gaze held his. “Yes.”

“That’s kind of fucked up.”

“Obviously.”

Knox surged forward and caught Dominic’s mouth with his own. God, yes—