Page 103 of Dance of Devils

I gaveher her own space because I’ve been where she is.

Lost. Broken. Desperate to cling to any anchor after floating on the open sea for so long you’ve forgotten what solid ground feels like.

I’m also wary of pushing her too hard, too fast.

Iwant her, in every way a man can want a woman. I want to feel her submission under my palm when I take her over my knee again. I want to hear the gasp in her throat when I lace my fingers around it, her arms and legs trussed to the corners of my bed.

I want tosavorher tight little cunt clinging to my cock when I drive into her for the first time.

But I refuse to be yet another monster in her life, another man who feeds off her vulnerability and desperation.

In the past, I may have been poor, at the mercy of systems that don’t give a fuck about you, and dogged by predators who would eat you alive just to laugh at your screams.

But I’m alsoacutelyaware of the massive power imbalance between us.

I’m rich, beyond powerful, and untouchable.

Brooklyn, on the other hand, is destitute. Powerless. Adrift in the world with nothing and nobody to cling to.

Until now, that is.

The fierce, almost breathtaking urge to shield her from the world, slay her demons, and lift her out of the filth and the dirt hits me again. My jaw tenses as my eyes adjust to the darkness and I lean forward in the armchair, my elbows on my thighs and my hands steepled as I slide my gaze over her sleeping form.

Yes, I gave her her own space. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to sit here and keep watch, ready to fight off the nightmares if they come.

As I look at the duvet, rising and falling with her breaths, my mind flickers back to earlier.

To her squealed moans. To the slick, messy way her pussy wrapped tight around my fingers as she came from my tongue.

I can still taste her.

It’s making me ludicrously hard, and seriously reconsider my stance on not pushing things with her. But no. I willnotbe another one of those men in her life. The motherfuckers from the club. Oranyof the men who paid her to dance for them, or grind on their fucking laps. I won’t be her ex—James, aka the dead man walking—who took what he wanted when he wanted it and left her with bruises.

So, no. For now, I won’t be taking things further than they’ve gone already.

I’ll touch her, yes. I’ll throw her on the bed, spread her gorgeous legs and feast on her pretty pussy until I’ve had my fill—which, honestly, might never happen.

Anything else can wait for now, even if she’s begging for it.

With all she’s been through, she’s not ready for my brand of fucking yet.

Not even close.

Are you going to fuck me now?

Something about the way she said that twisted a blade inside my chest. There was this note of…I don’t know,expectationin her tone that made my hackles rise.

I’m both furious and pained that she views sex as transactional.

That’s another reason I’m holding back.

Again…for now.

My phone buzzes quietly in my pocket. I pull it out to see a text from Isaak.

It’s here.

I cross the room to the bed, looking down at Brooklyn as she sleeps. A feeling I don’t recognize, one I’ve never felt it before, slices through me. Then I lean down and kiss her shoulder before pulling the duvet up over it.