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“I can’t,” I scream and throw a fist at his face, only to be caught midair by his palm.

“Why the fuck not?” he roars, as if he’s truly outraged that I can’t overpower his massive body.

The knife moves with my panting breaths, drawing more blood. I whimper. I’m dripping wet over how he doesn’t want to want me and can’t help it.

“Why,” he demands.

I give in. “Because I don’t want you to stop!”

He smashes his lips into mine. Skin to skin, hot breath from our noses like steam between us. I’m stuck in this moment, pinned between lust and logic. He parts his mouth and nudges his tongue at my lips, hot wetness sliding along the seal, but that heat goeseverywhere. I hold my lips shut, locked tight. I revel in punishing him—for pushing me away at the lake, for making me want him, for being so obnoxiously irresistible—but I can barely last.

His darkness crawls over my skin, and he tugs my hair to the side and pulls his mouth away, moving the knife tip under my chin. “Let me in, or my cock will split those pretty pink lips wide open. You’ll like it either way.”

That little smile, the heat it riles in me…I would have given in anyway, but much faster with that image in my head.“If only your cock were as big as your ego, I’d—”

He takes advantage of my parted lips, his tongue gliding inside, hot and slippery, waking up all my nerves.

And the whole world stops. I’m sure of it. It’s only the two of us, and never have I wanted to be conscious more than I do now, to be present in a single moment and never let it slip away. He’s so close, his touch gathering me up, hauling me in, immersing him in me, me in him. I grip the corded muscles of his arms tighter and tighter until my fingers ache.

He explores the depths of my mouth, tangling his tongue with mine. Like the darkness and lightness that come and go, the push and pull between us, he draws out slowly, the tip of his tongue tracing the roof of my mouth, then angles my head and thrusts back inside, so deep that I don’t know where he stops and I begin.

I can’t keep my hips still as he sucks my tongue inside of him, as if he needs me closer—needs a piece of me.Fucking take it.He bites down, trapping me with his teeth. I rock against him, the rhythmic pressure hardly sating the craving to be filled to the point of pain.

I whine into his mouth, destroyed with need.Yearsof need. I tried to resist. I did, but now that I’ve tasted him, felt him, I want more. His cock rubs between us with the movements of the deepening kiss, and I fall apart, hurting for every inch of this man.

He breaks the kiss and pushes us apart, gasping, still grasping my hair. I miss his touch immediately, the air we shared. An untamed look carves his face into nothing but angles and hard-cut gems for eyes.

My arms lift on their own accord, draping over his shoulders. I let the trace of a smile cast my mouth upward on one side. “Change your mind again?”

He tightens his fist around my hair and yanks my head back until I’m looking straight up at his lustful face. And as if he ripped it from me with that look, my breath is gone. He kisses my neck, his deep voice vibrating through me. “Always misbehaving, aren’t you?”

Always.I slide my fingers up his neck and grab a handful of curls on the back of his head, as soft and devastating as I imagined.“I can’t fucking stand you,” I whisper and pull his hair with all my might.

“Perfect,” he growls and dives his tongue back inside my mouth.

His fingertips skip along my lower back, two hands and a knife roaming under my shirt, every whisper of his touch haunting my skin.

This one escape. This one time.

I force his head closer and curl my tongue against his, over and over, deep inside. Until my tongue aches and my gums tingle. Until I’m breathless. Until I jerk away, gasping for air. And that sudden movement has his knife scraping a shallow cut along my back, leaving a stinging trail. He brings the bloody knife between us, then slides it along his tongue.

“You sick beautiful fuck,” I say, watching him lick it clean, one side, then the other. “Want seconds?”

“I want every fucking drop of you.” He tosses the knife aside and hauls me back to his lips for more. His hands caress my lower back, fingers wet with my blood, slipping and sliding like the passage of time, trespassing downward and wriggling under the crimps of my waistband, his kiss unrelenting. I flinch at his touch—cold, even covered in my warm blood. My hands grip his ringlets.

It feels unfairly good to be wrapped up in his arms—the last place I should be.

I rub my thumbs behind his ears, stirring a low rumble in his chest. Everything else falls away. No regrets. Only freedom from the hurt and pain and fear and death.

But he pulls back again, putting the cruelest inch between us. Then more inches.

“Please,” I say.

And his face is back in mine, bruises shining, eyes tunneling into me. “That’s not how this works.”

Fingers still dipped below my waistband, he bends down and unleashes his tongue on my neck, licking my collarbone, mythroat, my jaw and all the way to my earlobe, and that little part of me—he sucks it into his mouth. I gather up as much of his hair as I can and tighten my grasp so he’ll never pull away again.

But he does.