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I lick my lips and mutter, “Yes… I knew you would.”

“Smart girl. You were correct—I will always come for you. There is no corner of the earth you can escape to where I won’tfind you. Where you can outrun my mark. Because I own you now. You are mine to do with as I wish.”

I shudder as he drags the knife down my throat in slow, menacing fashion. He does so firmly but gently, demonstrating an understanding of how to wield it with true expertise.

The night is a warm and humid one. Yet the cool blade feels like ice against my skin. It travels down my throat, then scrapes across my collarbone. One wrong move, one misjudgment, and it would pierce my skin. It would make me bleed.

But I screw my eyes shut and concentrate on the sensations.

The measured drag of the blade across my flesh as Jin presses his cheek to mine and holds me tight.

“I told you I would kill you,” he says matter-of-factly. The blade reaches the swell of my breast and he pauses long enough I hold my breath. “But you already know I can’t do that. You counted on it, Tokki-ya. So instead of running you through with my blade, I’m going to do the next best thing.”

I gasp and flinch in his arms as, with masterful skill, he flicks the blade and cuts me on the top of my breast. It’s like a slash mark, a scratch that barely beads blood, but the sharp sting thrums through my breast just the same.

“Mmmm,” he moans into my ear, licking at the shell. He switches from English to Hangugeo. “Your blood is so beautiful, Tokki-ya. How about another?”

“Argh!” I cry out as he gives another sharp swipe of the knife and the front of my shirt falls apart. Then the cool blade’s returning to my breasts, where he rests it against my sternum.

I’m reeling from the sting of the first cut and the fear that’s exploded inside me. I’m out of breath as I draw for air but find myself empty. All I can think about is how the knife is pushing into me and with one fell swoop, he can hurt me.

Kill me if he wanted.

Yet there’s a sense of thrill about it too.

It’s some twisted game where I don’t know the outcome. I simply have to trust in him and find out what happens.

“This will hurt,” he warns, hissing into my ear. “But pain can be a good thing. Pain teaches lessons words never could. You disobeyed my command. Now you will pay with your body.”

I cry out and twist in his hold as he flicks the blade and nicks me across the side of my breast. But thrashing from within his arms does nothing. He simply squeezes me tighter against him and bites at my jaw, running his tongue across the pulse point at my throat. As if it excites him to feel how it speeds up.

He holds the blade under the fresh cut, waiting for the droplet of blood to trickle onto it. Then he holds it up for us to admire.

“Look, Tokki-ya,” he says almost tenderly. “Your blood looks so sweet. I can’t wait to taste it.”

I watch in shock as he swipes his tongue along the blade and licks it up.

“Mmm, yes,” he says satisfactorily. “As sweet as I bet the rest of you tastes.”

The blade returns to my body, skimming from my stinging breasts to the flat stretch that’s my stomach. It shouldn’t surprise me when another sharp sting radiates through me, yet it still does as Jin slices a new mark on my stomach.

The sharp pain mists my eyes. It makes my whole body clench in protest.

But it also dials up the heat I feel within. It intensifies the desire pooled inside me until I’m not sure if I’m feeling aroused or afraid or I’m just too damn shocked to process any of it.

Jin drags the blade down the rest of my stomach, pushing the basketball shorts of his that I’m wearing down my hips. He nicks a small incision when he does, a biting sting that reminds me of a paper cut, then slashes the blade across the front of my panties.

My loudest gasp yet sputters out of me. I go still in his arms, realizing I’m basically naked. The shorts are around my ankles and my t-shirt’s shredded open, hanging uselessly off my shoulders. Now my panties have been slashed away.

He presses himself against me until I’m sure I feel his erection. I’d sensed it before but know it now as it throbs against me.

“Look at this little pussy,” he growls into my ear. He combs the blade across the fuzzy patch of pubic hair I keep nice and trimmed.

I close my eyes and release a moan that sounds shocking even to my ears.

But it feels amazing, the cool, sharp blade scraping across such an intimate part of me. It feels twisted and taboo and wrong in so many ways. Which only makes me wetter, makes my pussy throb harder.

“You like that?” he breathes. “You like feeling the blade on such sensitive skin? On your delicate little pussy?”