Page 89 of Dancing With Demons

For all that there had also been pleasure, every single minute of my time with Ronin was filled with pain.

Down Ronin went, dropping soft, nipping kisses over my chin, along my neck, and between the valley of my breasts. His sudden switch from rough to soft surprised me, but didn’t sway me. His mouth closed around my nipple, sucking the soft nub into a hard, little pebble. He pounced on the other one and worshipped it in kind, making my core melt under his expert ministrations.

My body was giving him everything he expected of it, but my mouth, my expressions, my face, my heart... nothing.

“Hunter?” He released my nipple and frowned at me, frustration warring with the confusion on his face. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.” My voice was as flat and dead as the one I heard in that room. “So let’s just get this over with.”

“Over w—?”

Grabbing his head, I shoved him down between my legs—all talking over.

I could still see the confusion in his eyes as he picked up the pace—fingers plunging in and out of my hole while he sucked on my clit.

Bolts of electricity shot through my veins, tightening me around him. All the emotions. All the sensations. All the pleasure.

And I was completely cut off from it.

Ronin’s moans and grunts filled the room, but mine did not join him. He stretched my hole past its limits, scissoring me open and then plunging himself inside—tongue-fucking me with abandon.

I fisted the sheets, clenching my teeth hard, but I didn’t break.

I came hard—jerking and flopping on his mattress, and it was like it was all happening to someone else. With each resounding shock wave that rocked my body hard and harder—my hatred grew.

“Charlotte, I know what you’re doing.” Ronin’s words reached me from far away. “It’s not going to work.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Flipping over, I rose on all fours and presented my ass. “What are you waiting for? Do it already.”

“Dammit, Hunter,” he snapped. “If you’re angry, say it. You’ve never had a feeling that you’ve had to hide.”

My fingers curled into the blankets. “Every woman’s had a feeling that she’s had to hide.” I shoved my ass back. “And you don’t like my temper, remember? Far be it for me to subject you to it anymore.”

“I never said—”

“Are you done?” I moved away. “If you are, I’m leaving.”

“Char— Fuck’s sake!” Snarling, he grasped my hips—pulling me slowly, but firmly down on his cock.

I winced, the tiniest grunt escaping me. Ronin was just so big. The man filled me to bursting, and then some.

Ronin started pumping—first slowly, then quickly devolving into a wild, animalistic pace that squeezed grunt after grunt out of me, but nothing else.

I wouldn’t moan for him. I wouldn’t scream. Making a creature your pet and taming it were two different things.

My brows popped as a wet finger pushed past my puckered entrance. I opened my mouth to tell him to cut it out when I remembered the day I did much the same—shoving my finger up his ass to piss him off and make him get rid of me.

I wanted to believe that Ronin was the toxic one, but my need to give as good as I got was dragging me down along with him. Would the old me have manipulated five women eager to get out from their misogynistic fathers’ thumb by putting in their heads that they should pressure a guy into marriage? Would the old me have traded my blood and my body to a vampire tortured by hunger in exchange for him being my personal bodyguard? Wasn’t it true that a small, secret part of me liked that Santino slobbered and nipped at my heels like a... pet?

The thought rocked me to the core. No wonder Ronin’s so determined to have me. It’s because he found his soulmate.

“Agh!” Ronin grunted, spilling inside of me.

I kicked him off and scrambled off the bed, taking a throw blanket with me.

“Wait,” he called. “You haven’t come yet. At least let me—”

Pushing into the bathroom, I shut the door and climbed into the shower—washing his corruptive, addictive touch away.