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“Fuck me. Punish me. I’m yours.”

With a snarl, he undoes his pants and pulls his cock out. I can’t hold still. I reach up and try to grab his shirt, but Alden snatches my hands and pins them above my head.

I smile up at him.

“I have zip ties.”

“That shouldn’t turn me on,” Alden says, but he starts to pat down my pockets.

“Left one,” I chime happily.

He cocks a brow, then stuffs his hand in my pocket and pulls out the double-loop wrist tie. With quick efficiency, he binds my wrists together, then pushes them over my head.

“Keep your arms there,” he orders, his voice hoarse.

His body presses against mine, warming me despite the rain.

“You are turning me into a depraved and out-of-control thing. I’m not sure you’re going to survive.”

Alden means it as a warning, maybe even a threat.

God, he still doesn’t understand me.

He thinks showing me his teeth will make me afraid of being bitten, but all it does is make me want to shove my hand deeper into his mouth.

A part of me broke the night my mother sold me to his father. The little girl who existed before that night died in that room, and whoever crawled out after belonged to the boy who kicked open the door and saved her.

Alden.

He never knew my name and never really saw my face through the blood, bruises, and the shield of my hair. To him, I was probably nothing more than a terrified girl disappearing into the night.

But I saw him.

And I never stopped.

Alden has held the last fractured pieces of my sanity ever since.

My heart is his. My soul is his. Every ruined fucking piece of me has belonged to him for so long that I don’t remember what it felt like before him.

There is no Emily without Alden.

There is only us.

If he thinks death can separate us, he’s even crazier than I am. And if he decides tonight is the night he wants to kill me?

Fine.

Let him.

I’ll stare into those beautiful blue eyes while he does it. I’ll make sure his face is the last thing I ever see, and his arms are the last place I ever belong, because even my last breath is his.

I gasp when he snatches the knife and presses the blade against my throat.

My pulse slams against the steel. Rain slicks our bodies, runs into my eyes, drips from his jaw, and still, I don’t look away.

There you are.

My Alden, my monster.