Page 20 of Coal Hearts

Henri

––––––––

WELL, THAT WAS FUCKING HELL.

I swallowed a despairing groan.

I’d just given an English bastard ten thousand euros—that may or may not be counterfeit—and now had a woman hissing and spitting like a feral kitten, scratching at my wrist and promising ungodly harm to me if I didn’t unhand her that instant.

All of that was bad enough.

Terrible.

Criminal.

But the true crime wasn’t the fact that I’d just bought this girl from a man who wasn’t her keeper and had absolutely no right to sell her to me, but because I’d fucking enjoyed it.

I trembled with lust so black, so thick that I was surprised I still walked on two legs instead of four.

I sweated like a man being burned alive.

Because I was.

Burning with need.

With want.

Burning, burning, burning as I fought the claws of the carnivorous beast within me.

I was close.

Far, far too close to the precipice.

The precipice I’d fallen off once and only once.

The cliff that’d ensured I’d ended up at the bottom, horrified and petrified, coming face to face with what I truly was after a lifetime of hiding. It’d been the catalyst that drove me to seeking out my half-brother and practically dropping to my knees on his doorstep to help me.

“Let go of me!” she screeched, dragging her talons over my wrist for the hundredth time.

I didn’t wince even though it hurt.

My body was over sensitized.

Everything was too sharp, too potent, too tantalising.

If I focused on her scratching and the lacerating stings she granted, then I didn’t have to focus on everything else.

On the blackness.

On the deep, dark desire that snapped and snarled, wanting to be free, needing to snatch her and kiss her again. Kiss her until I tasted her tears and ate up all her screams.

Fuck.

Fuck!

This was bad.

Very, very bad.