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“More than you think!” I spat. “Iknowwhat it’s like to crave violence, to feel that power of a gun, death at my fingertips. Don’t assume you’re the only one here who knows that feeling.” When he said nothing and continued to stare into my eyes, I dropped my voice. “It wasn’t a mistake. Killing for killing’s sake isn’t good for the soul. They were just pawns, as you said. Besides, it’s not like they got away without warning.”
He laughed then, a dark laugh without humor, and I flinched under his touch. He paused, and his grip turned into a caress as he ran his thumb along my cheek. I must look a mess with a stranger’s blood smeared on my face, and I felt I should care more. But Emrick’s eyes were on mine, blazing bright in the night with an intensity I hadn’t seen before.
“What’s in your past? What did you do?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing.”
He chuckled then. “Liar.”
I trembled under his touch, his warmth had the memories flaring in me. Those memories of long ago—of violence and sex—blended with those thoughts of the other night with Emrick as he penetrated me, and I felt myself getting wet.
What was he doing to me?What was I doing tomyself?
Emrick’s face was lit with a sinister grin, knowing the effect he was having on me. “Maybe you’re just as dark as me.”
“I’m trying not to be.”
“But you can’t help it, can you? It’s in you, and it’s always there, eating away at your insides, filling your head with thoughts you don’t want to have. But now you’re so conditioned to think there’s something wrong with you, you can’t help but fight it. I think that’s why you fought being with me, not because you didn’t want to but because you were afraid I’d bring it out of you.”
How did he know?
“Emrick—”
His mouth met mine in an explosion of sensation. His lips were so soft in contrast to his rough touch, and he eased me into the kiss, sliding his tongue into my mouth only when I parted my lips and welcomed the intrusion. I moaned against his mouth. He was so hot, his body pressed against mine as his other hand snaked up my back and tangled in my hair. Using his weight, he pushed against me until I was forced to kneel and then lie in the dirt as he lay on top of me, fucking my mouth with his tongue. Wet, hot, and dirty, he took control as he did in the bedroom, and his lips worked expertly against mine.
I gasped when he pulled away, and he maintained his grip on my hair, his lips a whisper from mine. “Tell me…” he murmured. “What do you see?”
Studying his eyes, darker than the night as he stared hard at me, my lips were swollen from his assault, and I ached for more. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say, he was, as always, almost impossible to read. So, all I could do was tell him the truth of what I saw in those eyes beyond the darkness that emulates mine, beyond the anger, and beyond the front that he puts on. I saw in the way his hand shook when he held the gun, even though I’m certain he’d held it still countless times before and followed through. I saw it flash deeper and darker when he yelled, and at its strongest when he was kicking me out of his bedroom for reasons I still don’t understand.
“Pain,” I whispered.
His lips met mine again, and for the briefest of moments before his touch became rough, there was a gentle caress, where his tongue played with mine rather than dominating me, he kissed me in a way a lover would. But the moment was shattered when he hungrily devoured my mouth again, nipping and biting at my lips, and I thought he was going to take me right here in the dirt in the middle of nowhere.
I knew then, he wanted me to make him do the right thing. Hewantsme in a way he doesn’t want to admit to himself, in the same way I’m struggling to admit how badly I want him. Because when I think of him while I’m haunted by thoughts of him on top of me like this—but naked with his cock driving into me over and over again—I also think of standing beside him on that balcony, looking out over our empire.
The rush of power was insatiable. I’d felt it before, having someone kneel at your feet and beg for their life, and I wantedmore.
The rush of violence and sex, it shouldn’t work for me, but it justdid.
Because I was just as messed up as him, but he simply owned it.
Emrick brought out the worst in me, and maybe I salvaged a small, good part of him.
What did that make us together? One messed-up unit.
When he broke away from me, his expression was unreadable again. He glanced between his hand and my cheek before running his hand down my face from my forehead to chin, smearing my skin with blood, then taking my top in both hands and using the fabric to finish wiping the blood and dirt from his fingers.
My lip curled in disgust, and there was a slight smirk when he looked down at me as he stood. “I’ll tell the boys I taught you a lesson so you know not to step out of line again.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I simply whispered, “Okay.” I brushed myself off before following him back to the van.
EMRICK
What does she see?
Pain.
Obviously, she sees something I can’t. It’s been far too long living in the darkness. I’ve made the dark my entire life. Sleeping through the day when I need to and being active at night. Embracing the darkness inside me and molding my world outside to suit it.
