Page 373 of Coal Hearts

The one thing that condemned us because as much as I didn’t want to play this twisted game, I couldn’t deny I was complicit in it.

Marching into me, he grabbed a handful of my hair and held me tight. His eyes lit up with blinding silver. He was starving...starving for the very thing he kept asking for that I couldn’t deliver.

“It’s true. Fuck...I...” His fingers scalded; his body heat seared.

I swallowed hard as electricity crackled between us. His eyes fell to my lips.

For a moment, I feared he’d kiss me.

The one thing he never did.

I had a horrible suspicion of why that was.

Why we both stopped at that line.

A kiss was intense and intimate.

Taste and truth.

Both those things had the potential to decimate the cardboard fortress that kept wilting around my heart.

“If I told you that I have dreams of rutting into you on the lawn. Of making you sob as you come and scream my name as I bruise you...how does that make you feel?”

I convulsed.

The sickness tore through me, hijacking all my control.

His eyes turned black; his voice thick. “If I told you I wanted to string you up and gag you. If I admitted I wanted to eat you out, then cut the inside of your thigh with my sharp little knife...what parts of you respond?”

What parts?

God, all of them.

I grew damp and hot and wet.

Horribly, disturbingly wet.

I couldn’t help it.

I’d never been able to help it.

Why can’t I help it?

I hated this man.

I feared this man.

He was the reason my life was ruined, yet...right here, right now, I’d never felt so alive. So cherished as he’d pummelled those who hurt me. So precious as he killed for me—

God, Ily...stop—

“If I told you I wanted to drag you into the dungeons. If I admitted I wanted to whip that hate right out of you and force you to feel every part of me...would you fight me or bow for me?”

Fire.

Everything was on fire.

He was flames and fury, burning me alive with his wrath.