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“I was protecting you,” he gritted out.

“I wanted you jealous. I wanted you protective. I wanted you unhinged. And I still do.”

He growled, and suddenly it was like all his restraint was gone. He pushed her back up against the wall, his dark eyes blazing. “Do not test me. Do not push me.”

“You’re a fighter. Let me see it. You’re a fighter, why are you trying to hide it? Give it to me. All of your darkness. Give it to me. Stop hiding.” She pushed his chest, intensity driving her now. “I’m not a coward, Adonis. Neither are you. This doesn’t honor either of us.”

“Is this what you want? For us to go back to that night at the club? We were playing games.”

“But both things are real. What we had in the garden, that’s real. But that night was real too. I hope for a future, I hope for everything. Don’t you understand that I used to look at your hands, and I used to imagine you pinning me down?”

“Why?”

“Because men were always dangerous, but you weren’t. I knew that if I ever wanted to feel the full strength of a man, and have it be wonderful and not terrifying, it would have to be you. I wanted rough sex with you before I knew what that meant. Because I wanted something that felt sharp and hard as the way we grew up. I wanted you to take it and turn it into something else. Something more. Something miraculous. Because only you have ever been able to do that. Only you.”

“You are asking for ridiculous things, little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman, and you know it. I’m going to be the mother of your child. Your son. And if we can’t let the poison bleed out together, then we are going to die from it, you realize that, right? Because that’s what this is. These things in your past are slowly eating you alive, and you could share them with me instead.”

“I don’t want to do that to you.”

“Then just have me. Take me. Use me. Let me prove to you that I’m strong enough for this. For you.”

His hand shot out, curling around her throat, and she felt her knees go weak with desire. There he was. That dangerous man who’d had her the first time. The man that she had wanted for half her life.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I can handle you.”

He growled, his thumb sliding slowly down the delicate line of her throat, coming to rest on her pulse.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Let me show you that I’m strong enough. Let me show you that I want you. I’m made for you.”

The growl became feral, and he moved to nuzzle her neck, then to bite her. She gasped. Arching against him. She was begging him, silently. In her heart, in her head, for all of the heat and strength that he could give her.

“I’ve been making love to you since you made love to me in the garden.”

“And I like it,” she said. “But if you need to fuck me, then that’s what I need too. It’s not second-best. It’s part of who we are.”

It was true. They had been feral foundlings for most of their lives. Their understanding of the world was rough and intense. This should be too. It only made sense. It was only good and right.

It was the two of them.

He growled and gripped the front of her dress, tearing it away from her body, splitting the fabric at the seams.

She gasped.

“Is it too much for you?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not too much for me. You could never be.”

“I hope we don’t both regret this,” he growled, crashing his mouth down onto hers and claiming her with violent force.

But the two of them could capture violence and fashion it into desire. The two of them could make this hurt. She bit his lip, arching against him, and luxuriating in the feral sound that he made. He ripped her bra away, and she began to tear at the buttons of his shirt. If her clothes weren’t safe neither were his.

They were like a storm, coming together in a clash, coming together to express feelings that didn’t have a partner in language. There was only this. Only need. Only them.

He pushed her underwear to the side and thrust two fingers inside of her, curling them toward the front of her body and stimulating nerves deep inside of her that made her gasp. She flattened herself against the wall, surrendering to what he was doing to her. To the deep, quaking pleasure that he was creating in her body. He brought his other hand to his mouth, and sucked his middle finger deep, bringing it around to the back of her, and pushing it into the back entrance of her body as he continued to thrust his two fingers deep within her where she was slick for him. She gasped at the dual penetration, surrendering to the unfamiliar sensation. Surrendering to him.

“You are mine,” he growled. “Mine.”