Page 37 of Coal Hearts

I jolted as he touched my underwear.

Just a flutter, just a brush, but it was enough to rip my fraying sanity.

My teeth gnashed together. My heart pounded. The chains of the cuffs holding me down jingled and clanked as I fought. “Don’t. Don’t do this.”

Masculine chuckles came from the bar as Henri exhaled heavily behind me. “Baise moi.” (Fuck me.)

His brush turned into an illicit rub.

My clit throbbed beneath his unwanted touch.

I stiffened as he hissed in a breath. His fingers pressed harder between my legs, right in the spot that made my heart stop.

I’d never been shy of my body. I supposed my father and his medical background had something to do with that. He viewed the human body as a miraculous machine, but Krish had other ideas. He taught me how sacred and perfect every piece was. Our fingers and toes, our eyes and ears and legs. Each had a purpose. Each was a gift. Each was meant to be worshipped not sullied.

“Stop!” My back bowed as Henri’s finger probed my entrance, protected by the thinnest scrap of satin. My mind threatened to crack and whimper. To beg and plead. To fall into the panic brewing and bubbling in my belly.

The memory of what Krish said when he’d almost broken from a stranger hugging him unspooled in my splintering mind. He detested people touching him. Only I was granted that honour. My adoptive brother might be six years older than me, yet he held all the innocence of the world. He spent his days in silence and books, yet when he spoke, his words were utterly profound.

I recalled what he’d told me that night. “I am not this body. I am not this skin or form. I’m merely the watcher within it. They can touch my shell, but they will never touch me.”

I clung to those words as Henri’s fingers pressed a little deeper, stroking the opening of my body, forcing me to accept or shatter.

I am not this form.

I’m untouchable.

I’m—

I cried out as he tore my underwear down my legs, ripped the breakable satin so they dangled off one ankle, then cupped my bare flesh with his hot palm.

My entire nervous system reacted.

I moaned and scratched at the table. “Stop...stop!”

Henri bent forward, his finger stroking me, petting me. He groaned directly into my soul. “Merde, you’re wet. H-How is that possible?” The tip of his finger dipped inside me. He shuddered as if I had the power to drop him to his knees. “Fuck...did you feel it too? The connection? The awareness between us?”

I turned to ice.

I hated that he’d felt it.

The difference.

The chemistry.

Hatred burned my tongue. “The only thing I feel for you is loathing.”

His jaw worked as he swallowed hard. His finger hovered on the precipice of claiming me. Bending closer, he whispered, “I still feel it. Feel that unexplainable familiarity.” His attention flickered to the two men watching us. “It’s why I tried to let you go. Why I tried to send you away. It was you who chose this. You who doomed both of us—”

“Go to hell.”

He groaned and pulled his touch away. “Like I said, we’re already there.”

I went to suck in a breath, one final untainted breath, but he pounced on me.

His finger speared deep.

His grunt burrowed into my blood.