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My breathing was uneven, my mind a lazy pile of mush. He pulled my pants up and sat me upright again, my back to his chest. I could still feel how hard he was beneath me, and I wanted to consume him this time. I pushed my hand between us, trying to rub him, but before I could even get there he was grabbing my wrist and bringing it to his mouth. Nipping at the sensitive skin by my pulse.

“Tell me why you were upset,” he said in between little bites that were reviving my arousal.

“Why do you even care?” I grumbled. I had a strong urge to piss him off, to make him hate me, to push him away, show him that he shouldn’t be giving me any attention or care or anything. I wanted to break whatever this was between us, to shatter it so completely there was no chance of recovery.

“Because I want all of you, Whitney.” He nipped at my chin as his fingers squeezed my ass. “I want your body.” His teeth grazed my jaw. “I want your mind.” His stubble scratched at my skin as he drew my earlobe into his mouth, sucking on it. “I want your heart.” His words ended on a whisper that sent shivers down every notch of my spine. “I want you to be as gone for me as I am for you.”

My heart was thumping so hard, I knew he could hear it. Could feel it. “Stop,” I breathed, pushing against his chest.

But he slid his hands from my pants and banded them around me in a tight hold. He leaned back and met my eyes. “Never,” he said. “I will never stop. You came out of nowhere and lit up my world with so much hostile fire, like a vengeful, vicious angel, that I haven’t stopped burning yet.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All I could do was stare into those vivid green eyes, smoldering from the inside and trying to burn me just as he said I’d done to him.

“Court,” I started. I needed to put an end to this. “I…”

When I didn’t finish my sentence, the light in Court’s eyes dimmed. Just a little. And that tiny, infinitesimal glimpse of his disappointment, of his sadness, made anguish swell inside me until I felt like I’d burst.

I didn’t want to hurt him. Not anymore. That realization was like an arrow through the heart.

I let my head fall against his shoulder. This whole time, I thought he just wanted to take me. But he wanted to take me apart. To own every last piece of me. To possess parts that hadn’t worked in a long, long time.

“You don’t even know me,” I whispered.

There was shuffling behind me as Court propped himself on his elbow and turned me onto my back so he could stare down at me with those vivid eyes.

“Is that what you think?” His expression turned deeply thoughtful, and he brought his eyes to mine. “That I don’t know you? That I don’t see you? Or better yet, see right through that little act of yours? That I don’t see what you need, what you crave most?” He dragged his thumb across my breast, stopping to circle my nipple through my shirt, then trailed his hand up to ghost his fingers along my jaw. “What you beg me to give you with those eyes every fucking day?”

My mouth had gone dry. “And what is it you think I crave most in life?” I was trying so hard to keep the bite in my voice, to stop him from seeing just how much I was craving him in this moment. How much I was always craving him.

I held still as he lowered himself until his teeth grazed along my jaw toward my ear, his breath sending light tremors through me. He bit the shell of my ear, kissed the sting away, and whispered, “To be loved.”

A small, strangled sound burst from me, and before I could say anything, he pressed his lips to mine in a soft kiss. “Shh,” he murmured against my lips.

I’d gone rigid beneath him, panic and chaos and anger and denial collided with each other hard, sparking a vicious fury that felt like a bomb had been detonated inside each and every atom of my being. Everything inside me was telling me to run, to escape, to deny his words.

Before I could do anything, he turned me back on my side, dragged me against his chest, and curled himself around me as if he was…protecting me.

His words sank deeper and deeper as he murmured to me in a low voice. I couldn’t hear him over the roaring in my ears. My mind was a hurricane of unformed thoughts, just frenetic emotions that swirled around, colliding with each other.

Finally, those three words broke through the chaos inside me.

To be loved.

A tear spilled down my cheek to the bed. “You don’t know me,” I whispered.

“You tell yourself you don’t want me to know you. Or love you. Or do anything for you. Except you actually do. So stop lying to yourself. Please, just let yourself hear the fucking truth. You are driving me crazy.”

How could he know me when I hardly even knew myself?

When he started kissing my scars, almost reverently, a violent explosion of terror ripped through me. I jerked my right elbow back into his stomach, trying to twist out of his hold as he grunted from the impact, but he just grabbed my arm and held it firmly to my chest and went back to kissing the underbelly of my other arm, making me tremble in his embrace.

“Stop,” I rasped, almost inaudibly. Tears were pricking behind my eyes, and I bit down hard on my lip, trying to distract myself with the pain.

I wanted him to stop, because every word he gave me was like a nail in my heart. I wanted to hurt him so he’d stop, hurt him so badly he wouldn’t even think to try and come after me if—no, when—I left.

Because I was leaving.

I was leaving.