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I can’t get enough of his hands on me. I hate that I crave his touch, the lure of his gaze. Everything I think I loathe about him is drowned out by those eyes that let me in deep, let me see past it all, yet nothing at all. Without even setting sight on those brown irises, I sink into them.

“It took every fucking scrap of strength in me to walk away from you, and you come to me?” He hugs me tighter, a struggle evident in his shaky embrace. “You’re going to ruin everything.”

“How?” When he doesn’t answer, I confess, “I don’t want to feel right now.”

He scoffs. “If you’re looking not to feel anything, you’re in the wrong arms.”

I rest my head back on him. “I don’t want to hurt.”

“Also the wrong arms.”

“Fuck, Elivander. The cuffs. Take off the cuffs,” I say, my breathing rapid.

He speaks into the back of my hair, his hot breath on my scalp. “Why would I take them off when I like them so much?”

Maybe I should be appalled. I try to make my voice sound like I am. “Youlikethem?”

He purrs as he speaks, words dribbling over me. “I like the hard metal against your skin, the little red marks that take days to fade, the sound they make banging into each other when you fight back—and most of all…” His breath warms my ear, and I snap my head to the side to escape the sensation. “I like that you can’t get away.”

Yes, yes…appalled was right, but my body reacts in quite the opposite way. Maybe I like being at his mercy and given the chance to defy without fear, to resist without ridicule. I wiggle my hands at his crotch, metal clinking. “Then you might as well tighten them, make it worth my fight.”

He groans, flustered, and sets his chin on my shoulder. It presses into me with every syllable. “I told you not to let me do this. I told you.”

“Then shoved your tongue in my mouth.”

His arms squeeze tighter. “I fucking tried. But now—it’s too late to stop me.”

My voice cracks, letting out only soft, scratchy words. “Stop you from what?”

“What I’m about to do…” He licks my ear, a long hot stroke from lobe to tip. “To you.”

Chapter

Thirty-Eight

My insides heat at Eli’s voice, his words, his tongue on my skin. I can’t decide if I want to lean into his wet warmth or pull away and slap him. “I thought you couldn’t do this.”

“I can’t.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“You hate me, don’t you?” he asks.

A little. A lot…maybe not at all.This isn’t about the tenderness I know was behind his forceful kiss. Or what I see in him. Or the man I want to take apart and map his every thought and feeling so I can follow along. I can’t let him think I want anything more than he wants—to simply fuck away the feelings. It’ll scare him off. And Ineedthis. I angle my head, trying to look up at him. “So much. This means nothing.”

He lets out a strained breath with a controlled tremble to it, as though he’s holding back things I can’t imagine. “Nothing.”

Keeping me tucked tight against him, he uncrosses his arms and plays the stone drums on the stump in front of us, smacking and building a rhythm. Our bodies move together—his hips rolling with mine, his chest becoming my own, my breath, his breath—until I can’t tell the difference, the beat as fast as our drumming hearts.

No warning strikes before the rhythm stops and he leans back, pulling me with him and wrapping me up. His lips clamp onto my neck, sucking, my skin drawn into his eager mouth, teeth scraping, tongue rolling. Then nothing. Only the scorching air from his lungs whisking over me, cold on my wet skin.

“This is how it’s going to go,” he lectures. “I’m going to fuck you until I don’t want to anymore, until I don’t spend every minute thinking of me inside you, until I don’t see your face when I close my eyes, and you’re not a constant fucking distraction with every godsdamn breath I take.”

“Careful…I might think you care.”

He only takes a deep, measured breath and continues. “Then I’m going to do it again. In every position. Every tight little hole will be for me. And I’ll take you home, little Never. I’ll lock you up and keep you as mine forever, and you just go on hating me. Can you do that for me?”

Lust flips my stomach and wets my core. “I hate you.”But I don’t.