Page 62 of The Monster and the Masochist

Still quivering slightly, she leaned in, tilting her head to the side, and then… She was kissing me.

I’d just meant for it to be a chaste kiss goodbye, but the way she melted into it…

The soft, panty-melting groan she released had me turning feral.

She’d made that sound for me.

She was melting into my arms because she wanted to please me.

The idea of being powerful enough to control someone as untouchable as Theodora made me want to literally devour her until there was nothing left of her for anyone else to even look at.

Suddenly, I was clawing at her t-shirt, dragging her in closer to me, and thrusting my tongue back into her hot mouth.

She slid her fingers up into my hair and kissed me back just as desperately. Her blunt fingernails scraped over my scalp, and I shuddered at just how good she felt.

Mine.

Mine, mine, mine!

The monster in my chest was curling its claws into my heart just as desperately as Theo was curling her fingers in my hair, and I knew at that moment, things were about to get a lot more complicated than they already were.

Instinct told me to fight the possessive need to consume this woman.

She was too willing.

Theo wanted to be destroyed, and she’d stumbled into the arms of a monster who was all too eager to rip her to shreds.

It would ruin us both if I gave in to this.

As if she wanted to prove me right, she whimpered in my mouth, and another wave of aggressive need tore through me at the sound. I wrapped my hand around her throat, and her hips rolled slightly as she clung to me.

Squeezing hard enough to earn myself another delicious moan, I hummed with satisfaction as she teetered on her feet before me.

If I asked her to kneel for me, I knew she would do it.

If I told her to crawl, she would obey.

She was fucking putty in my hands, and I knew it.

It was too much power for someone like me to have over another person.

Theo deserved someone who could love and care for her in the gentle way she so clearly needed.

Nothing about me was gentle or loving.

I wasn’t sure I was even capable of love.

I’d sworn off love the day I realized my mother would never love me back.

I hadn’t even ever told my siblings I loved them.

All I could give Theo was my toxic desire to own her, and she deserved more.

I knew she did.

But as I bit her lip and she literally sank into me like she was begging me to hurt her even more than I already had… I knew it was too late.

I could feel my obsession for her spread its wings and glide across the horizon of my mind, like some great, looming thing.