Page 11 of Beyond Hate (Beyond #3)

“Look at you, though… you’re trembling.” My thumb stroked the jut of his hipbone and another small sound caught in the back of his throat.

“Are you going to tell yourself later it’s because you were afraid…

or are you going to admit it’s because something inside you is broken , London?

” The pain that wrenched across his features at the accusation didn’t stop me.

“It’s fucked up enough to remember the way you used to pretend to want me. ”

“I didn’t—” He cut himself off when my hands pulled him closer, so the slow gyration of his pelvis was suddenly pressed against me. The heat of his body soaking into mine made my lids flutter shut.

He felt good.

He felt …

Different.

That difference was the whole reason we were here to begin with. Because he was London … not Nikki. When I opened my eyes, London was who I saw looking at me with a half-pained, half-confused expression.

“Come on, rabbit,” I murmured, stroking against his smooth, soft skin again. “Dance for me. Maybe if you do, we can both forget what I’m actually here for.”

Like it was on my side, his playlist switched to a different song.

It was a little faster, but the words were just as evocative.

He’d been such a scared, terrified thing when I’d had him trapped at the facility, but I’d watched him enough while he was here to know that there was something almost powerful about his presence when he gave himself over to music.

I wanted that power beneath my fingers.

I wanted to feel it rocking against my body…

I wanted…

“You’re really here, aren’t you?” he whispered. I was caught up in the way the question was filled with some emotion I couldn’t wrap my head around.

“I never left.”

He stared at me for a beat, then nodded. I watched the decision as it formed on his face, the knowledge that he was going to do exactly what I said… and I wondered if he was only doing it because he wanted to get out of this alive.

I could have told him I had no honor—no obligation to be truthful. If I wanted to, I’d still kill him, whether he danced or not.

But at this point, I was pretty sure we both knew I wanted more than that.

He moved then, and all thoughts fled my mind. It was just London, his hips rocking, his lithe body writhing in perfect time with the music. It was just him when he turned, twisting so he half straddled me on the chair while keeping himself an inch away from me.

Was this what he did in this room when he led men back here? Touched without touching? This almost pantomime of sex?

A low grunt ripped from me, and I wrapped my hands around his waist, dragging him to close the space between us. He let out a gasp as my hips flexed up… not because he was touching me, but because I could feel how hard he was, could see his cock standing at attention beneath the pink lace he wore.

He could say it was from nerves, or adrenaline.

He could say whatever he wanted, because when he rolled his hips, I knew he felt how hard I was too. He tried to jerk back, but my hands around him were like a vise.

“Keep dancing.” It was a soft, silky demand.

London’s eyes searched my face, that confusion still written clearly on his features. But his hands drifted to my shoulders, and his body rolled against mine again, grinding on the hard length of my cock trapped inside my pants.

“How does it feel?” I murmured, skating my hands along his back as I spoke. It made him arch into me, though I wasn’t sure he noticed. “To know that you want me after everything I’ve put you through. I think you missed me.”

“I didn’t, I—”

“It’s like your body can’t help itself, London.”

His body.

His soul.

Who he used to be.

Who he was now.

“I don’t—” He gasped, and when my hand came down and slapped against his bare ass cheek, he let out a low groan and jutted his hips forward.

“Don’t lie to me.”

Fuck, there’d been enough lies for a few lifetimes. I just wanted… I wanted honesty. My hand came up, tangling in his hair and jerking his gaze to mine. I was deliberate when I rocked my hips up, drinking down the sight of the pleasure painted across his face at the friction.

“Otto, I…” He swallowed hard, but he didn’t stop moving.

My hand on his hip was loose, and London rocked back against me of his own volition.

“I don’t…” Desperate eyes dropped to my lips, trailed between us where our bodies were joined together, separated by denim and lace and the fucking lie on his tongue.

“No more lies, London.”

He took a trembling breath and rolled his hips into me again, whining at the friction before the words left his lips.

“I don’t want to die.” His pulse was jumping in his throat, his eyes a little too wide, his hands still reaching for me even while he tried to talk his way out of his obvious desire.

Did he really believe he was just doing this for survival?

That he was doing this because he was afraid I was going to kill him?

“What makes you think you get to die?”

“You said—”

My hand snaked up, wrapping around his throat.

The squeeze of my fingers made him groan, and I felt his cock twitch between us again.

“I said I was going to make you pay. Slowly… hm.” I glanced down between us and arched a brow.

“Maybe part of that is making you admit that your body still wants me, even if you can’t remember the sins of your past.”

Or maybe I was just selfish and unwilling to admit it.

Maybe some part of me knew I wanted him just as much…

that I was hard in my pants, but I wasn’t about to fuck him here in this room and leave that much evidence for when the police inevitably showed up.

I’d spent a month getting myself under control—I wasn’t going to lose it the first time I touched him.

I wasn’t going to make it that easy for him to get rid of me.

I stood before he had a chance to process what I was saying, my hand still around his throat, bringing him up with me. His breath trembled as I leaned in close and brushed my lips along his cheeks, trailing my tongue against his tears with a groan.

“I’m going to break you, London. Every part of you. And by the time I’m finished, you’re going to be begging me to do it. You should have run while you had a chance, but you didn’t. You waited for me.”

My eyes dropped to his mouth, parted and wet… and I pushed him away from me before I gave in to temptation.

There would be time for that later.

For now, I left him there… cock hard in his panties, and a dead man on the floor beside him. His lost, haunted expression followed me as I exited the room.