Page 124 of Deviant Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 4)

My surprise renders me useless—well, that along with the way he’s working my body and the fact that all my blood has raced to my upside-down head and is mixing with the vodka still flowing through my system, so I just reach out and press my hand to the pad.

It takes a second, but then it beeps, the little light turns green, and the sound of locks being disengaged hits my ears.

Holy shit.Theo really did give me access to his place.

That realisation hits me harder than I’m sure it should, and as he carries me inside, swinging the door closed behind us, I forget all about fighting as we move through his dark space.

He brings us to a stop on the other side of his living room. My feet have barely hit the floor, my body missing his fingers, before my back crashes against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Theo, what—”

His eyes are wild as they stare into mine and a shudder of desire laced with fear rips through my body.

Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls a knife out.

My mouth goes dry as I stare at it.

“What? You think you’re the only one who gets to play with knives, Hellcat?”

I swallow nervously as he takes a step toward me. For the first time since I took a blade to his car, I’m seriously regretting it. What the hell was I thinking?"

“P-pleas—”

“Aw, look at you, begging for it,” he drawls, cutting off what was going to be my demand for him not to hurt me.

Tucking the knife under the hem of my shirt, he drags it up, the fabric parting with ease until he gets to the slashed neckline that hangs down over my shoulder.

He drags both my jacket and my ruined shirt down my arms and roughly tugs them from my hands.

The cold glass behind me makes me shiver and my nipples harden beneath my bra. He can’t see them for the padding, but it doesn’t stop his eyes dropping as if he knows, as if he can see past my underwear and to exactly what he does to me. What his roughness, his darkness, his anger does to me.

My chest heaves as we stare at each other. If he’s waiting for me to tell him to stop as he stands there with his knife poised to cause some damage, then he’s going to be bitterly disappointed.

It might have been a thoughtless act, vandalising his car, but deep down, I knew exactly what I was doing, exactly what beast I was poking.

And it fucking worked, because he’s right in front of me.

“What?” I taunt. “You gonna stop there?”

He surges forward, slipping a finger beneath the small bit of fabric holding the cups of my bra together and slices it clean through with his knife—only this time, he catches my skin, too.

I hiss as the burn hits me, my eyes dropping as blood pools at the small cut.

Theo stares at it, sucking his lip into his mouth, his teeth sinking deep into the flesh.

Just as I start to wonder if he’s actually going to move, he lifts his hand and runs a finger down the cut. It stings, but I don’t stop him as he drags his digit lower and writes a T with the blood on my stomach.

“You see that?” he asks, his voice so low it’s barely more than a growl.

I nod, staring at his handiwork as another droplet of blood threatens to run down my body.

“You’re mine, Emmie. Mine,” he repeats, in case I didn’t understand the first time. “The next time anyone touches you, a fucking Reaper, anyone… I. Will. Kill. Them.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes at him.

“Dramatic much. Jesus, Theo. It’s not like you caught me fuc—”

“Don’t,” he warns, grasping me around the throat and pinning me back against the glass. “Don’t even think about fucking any other fucking guy.”