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“She.Her.” I hate that I can’t hold back the tears. I take that anger and make fists of both my hands, punching his chest. It helped when I fought the bully foster sister I had. It does nothing to James. “You can’t even say her name.”

“Because she has no place in this room. It’s you and me here.” This is the first time he’s really raised his voice at me. The firstfire I’ve seen in his cold eyes tonight. “Yes, I’m telling you this to instill fear in you. So you stop crawling under my goddamn skin. You’re driving me out of my mind. I thought I was clear before. I thought the punishment was enough. Yet you just keep…Fuck. Keep going deeper. Why are you doing this to me?”

My heart bangs loudly in my chest. This isn’t right, how every crazy, psychotic thing he says makes me lean closer to him. My soul shouldn’t reach out to this monster.

I’m losing myself.

“I don’t care about her,” he groans. This isn’t a lie. His eyes tell me so.

“Is that what I am to you?” More tears. My chest caves in on itself. I feel everything. His hard dick against my pussy. His heart beating against mine. My sore, welted ass. How drenched I am for him. “A womb to fill? A woman to dispose of? Someone you don’t care about?”

“Damn it, Ophelia, can’t you see?” He wraps a hand around my throat, tipping my chin up with his thumb. His eyes flicker before he leans in to suck my tears off one cheek. The other. His gaze is back on mine, icy and horrible. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to check on you that first night you spent here. Shouldn’t have developed an obsession with you for…for too fucking long. You were never meant to be here. The feelings I have, they’re all wrong. Terribly wrong, and they’re taking over me.”

A barrage of questions swarms inside me. Toppling one over the other. Twisted attraction mixes with a new kind of fear. A horrible one.

One that makes me stop punching him. “I’m a problem for you, then.”

Every part of me needs James’s warmth, even a sliver of it. Anything he has to offer.

Every part of me wants to get the hell out of here.

His short hair is a mess. Face pinched in anguish. He seems younger. More human. “You are.”

“You’re going to deal with that problem.”

The sadistic bastard he is, he doesn’t answer. James leans in, his lips pressing to the corner of my mouth. A threat, one of many. I shudder once again, yet I cling to him. Begging him to save me. To keep me. To not do what I think he’s about to do.

All the while I’m begging myself to hate him.

17

OPHELIA

“Tell me, Ophelia.” His free hand lowers to my breast, rolling my peaked nipple between his fingers. It hurts. It feels good. “Are you happy that she’s gone?”

“No,” I lie. In my head, a picture of him and another woman appears. Both of them welcoming Topher and me for that first dinner. Infuriating. “No, I’m not. If she were alive, I wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have bought me or planned to kill me.”

“Killing you.” He tries the words on his tongue, it looks like. James closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them, his stare is wicked. “Will believing I’m going to kill you make you cry harder?”

“Don’t trick me.” My body turns against me, forcing out a fresh wave of tears. I cry even harder at the frustration. At the ache in my bones. “You’re going to kill me. That’s what you do to women.”

“Yet that doesn’t change the fact that you’re jealous. Of a dead woman.”

“What difference does it make?” I try to cower from him. Raise my hands to my eyes, desperate to stop this madness inside my head.

“It does.” Too easily, with one hand, he peels mine off my face, pinning my wrists over my head. The other one is back on my throat. “The truth, Ophelia. Stop testing me.”

“Fine. Fine. I am. I’m glad she’s not here.” This isn’t right, these emotions he brings up in me. I have no claim on him. I shouldn’t get attached. Shouldn’t be happy about another woman’s unnecessary death. “Argh! I hate you!”

“No, you don’t.” He examines me closely. Silently. “You want to live. With me.”

My jaw slacks. Talk about whiplash. “I—What kind of statement is that?”

He lowers his hand down my chest, squeezing my tit. Grinding his cock on me. He hurts me so I’ll fear him. Moan for him. “Answer me.”

“The first part, yes, you psycho.” I’m not sobbing anymore. But it’s as if my tears obey James. I still cry rivers for him. Traitors. “Of course I want to live.”

“Then you’ll do as I say.” The pressure on my breast is gone, except what happens now is worse. He pumps two fingers in and out of my mouth. “You’re going to suck me. You’re going to do it while you think about all the ways I’m going to kill you. You’ll cry on my cock. When I make you come, you’ll scream around it.”