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“Go on,” Wicker whispers, glancing at me from the corner of his eyes. “Take what you want.”

Beneath Lex’s wild hair are eyes just as empty as the angel’s were.

My voice emerges in a thin, panicked rasp. “What are you doing? He’s sleepwalking!”

“I know,” Wicker says, glancing down. Lex’s cock, thick and hard, bobs as he shuffles forward. “He needs to make a deposit.”

I scramble backward, my heels slipping against the sheets. “But he’ll–he’ll hurt me!”

Wicker shoves Lex through, just three more steps, and then grabs the golden knob. “Better you than him.”

The door closes.

I gape at it for only a short moment before seeing Lex’s shape twitch in my periphery. When I gather up the courage to slide my gaze toward him, I swallow loudly in the stillness of the room. He’s almost too much to take in all at once. I’ve had a lot of sex these past few weeks, but somehow, I’ve never seen any of my Princes wholly naked like this. I’ve spent plenty of nights on that cold exam table, watching those biceps shift and flex as Lex filled me with hard plastic, aching to know what was beneath his shirts.

And now I do.

He’s hard and ready, standing there looking like something out of an erotic horror movie, and as my eyes zero in on his lips, all I can think is that it can’t be so bad. Even if he fucks me hard–even if it’s rough–it’ll still be good, won’t it? Because it’s Lex. It’s the man who gifted me the finger of the asshole who hurt me. It’s the man who touches me with such clinical care as he draws my blood. He’s the one who stroked me so skillfully as Wicker forced his seed into me last night, his amber eyes never leaving mine.

He’s the only guy in this house who’s ever given half a damn about giving me pleasure.

But when I raise my gaze to his, what I see there makes my stomach drop.

His eyes are as black as obsidian, honing in on me like a demon. It’s a stare that promises violence, and as he takes the first step forward, I hear his warning ring in my memory.

I need you to understand that I hurt people too, Verity.

I feel the memory of his hands on my throat. Fighting… it only made him more violent. My pulse quickens and the surge that comes through me is conflicted. Fight or flight...

I could run like last time, but where? And to what end? That only aggravated him further. Fighting is futile. Wicker let him in, which means no one is going to give me refuge if I get past him.

My lips part, the words shaky and quiet. “I won’t fight you, Lex,” I tell him, and then I slide the covers away, revealing my thin gown and bare legs. In anticipation of Wicker’s next attack, I know Lex sees everything when I spread my legs.

Or he would, if he were looking.

His eyes aren’t on my body though. They’re fixed to mine, dark and penetrating, his nostrils flaring with an inhale as he charges forward. It’s the tension coiling his muscles that makes me brace for impact, and even though I tell myself to be still–to take whatever’s coming–I still throw my hands up, gasping, as he growls, slamming into me.

It knocks the air from my lungs, but his weight bears down on me like a boulder before I can suck in a full breath. Even if I could, his fingers instantly grasp my throat, squeezing. Through the pain swimming in my eyes, I can make out his feral expression above me, mouth pulled back to show his teeth as his hips push and shove andseek.

“Lex,” I wheeze, grabbing for his wrist, but if anything, the name makes him squeeze harder. I slam my heel into his leg, pounding my fist into his forearm, but nothing budges him. The violence I’d seen in his stare earlier has transformed to outright murder, even as he snarls, punching his hips into me clumsily.

“…. when I’m asleep… things get… mixed up. Endorphins. Adrenaline.”

Jolting into action, I part my thighs, reaching between us to find his cock. The skin is hot, pulled tight, and it doesn’t take much to guide it a little lower, tilting my hips up to meet his next thrust.

He spears into me with a clipped growl, slamming his pelvis into me with such force that I slide up the bed. The stretch of sudden fullness is nothing compared to the rush of air that enters my lungs when I gasp, Lex’s hand releasing my throat to fist the pillow beneath my head.

Some unholy satisfaction rolls through him in a wave, his chest contracting with an animalistic sound.

And then it really begins.

Looking up into his face, I watch the swinging jolts of his hair as he fucks me, but I don’t seehim. Not in his eyes. Not in his snarling mouth. Not in the fevered slump of his brow. Every inch between us hurts with the force of the meeting, and as I cry out in shock, my fingers fumble for purchase against his back, struggling to fasten his raging body to my own.

But they slide against something wet and warm, and when I pull my hand back, biting down a yelp, I realize why.

Blood.

“Lex,” I whimper, fingers stuttering wetly over his bicep. “Lex, wait!”