Page 51 of Retrograde

“Please,” she mouths.

“Begging gets you nowhere,” I assure her.

She takes a deep breath through her nose, exhaling sharply. Her eyes fill with simpering fury that’s more than a match for my own.

“Fine,” she spits. “If reason gets me nowhere, and begging gets me nowhere, then fuck you. I’m not walking in there.” She stands on her tiptoes to get in my face, teeth bared. “Whatever you’re going to do to me just fucking do it already.”

Despite the hatred in her glare, she is biting her lip and leaning closer to me. Her body craves my touch. Her body and her mind are at war. And no matter her resistance, her body will win. I’ll make sure of it.

“Careful, Hotshot,” I growl. “It’s starting to sound like you want me to punish you.”

She hisses with a sharp intake of breath, taken aback. But she collects herself quickly, and a defiant, daring smirk ripples across her face.

“Maybe I do.” Her breath is hot on my lips, her gaze locked with mine.

The blood in my veins ignites, rushing through my body with a fiery roar. My hand shoots forward, driven by instinct. I fist her hair, whipping her around with a sharp tug. Fast, so that she doesn’t see the triumphant smirk on my face.

She thinks she’s ready for what’s coming because she thinks that the worst I can give her is pain. Little does she know that her pain no longer interests me.

Not since I found out that I could be the first to give her pleasure. From the moment she told me, I’ve been like a man possessed, craving the power I could have over her, obsessed with making her crave me. There’s no resisting it anymore. I’m going to ruin her.

I tear her from the spot. I yank the door open and drag her inside, her fingers digging into mine as she struggles to loosen my hold on her hair.

Roughly, I shove her inside her cell and shut the door behind us with a loud bang.

“Trousers off.” I bark at her. “Now. Don’t make me do it for you.”

I need her bare, exposed, at my mercy.

She looks at me with her lips slightly parted but doesn’t dare protest with a single word. She slips out of her trousers and her shoes and leaves them crumpled on the ground. Her clit is deep pink and swollen. Fear’s got her all ready for me.

She retreats from my approach until her back is pressed against the cell bars. Her wide eyes are searching my face frantically.

“Aron ...” She says my name like it’s a warning—I want to hear her moan it.

Still, I hesitate. The next step I take towards her is deliberately slow, gravel crunching underneath my boot. There are very few lines I haven’t crossed. But taking a woman against her will is one of them.

Not that I couldn’t, if it came right down to it. It’s because I’ve crossed so many of those lines that I know the fundamental truth about them. Those invisible barriers that separate a good person from a damned one are invisible because they don’t exist. I couldn’t imagine killing a man until I did. But when I did, the pits of hell hadn’t opened to swallow me whole. There was no immediate, impactful regret to drive me to despair, no sleepless, nightmare-ridden nights. Just tiny, imperceptible ripples of missing who I was before—chipping away at my soul so very slowly that I didn’t realise the damage they caused until the person I used to be was practically gone.

I now know without a shadow of a doubt that I could do absolutely anything I set my mind to. But her defeat isn’t what I want. Her surrender is.

Three men have forced her before me. None has ever discovered the way to make her body sing. I will be the first.

“Tell me you don’t want it,” I rasp, taking one more step towards her.

“I don’t,” she whimpers feebly, crouching like cornered prey.

My pretty little prey.

“Tell me you don’t want to know what it’s like when it feels good,” I urge her.

She closes her eyes for a heartbeat, groaning. Conflicted. “Not you,” she pleads. “Anyone but you.”

Her words tear at something raw and fill me with a dull ache.

Anyone but me? Soon, there won’t be anyone else in her world—I’ll make damn sure of that. By the time I’m done with her, she’ll forget anyone else exists.

“I won’t fuck you today if that’s what’s got you scared.” I grit my teeth because fuck if I wouldn’t like to! But to get her to drop her defences, I need to give right now, only give and not take.