Page 184 of Endgame

A painful shock shakes me to my core. I’m not lowering to the floor, I’m crashing. Fast.

My hands slam onto the wood, catching me before I faceplant into it.

“Ow!” My head is tipped down, my hair draping over my face. My lungs struggle to take in air. “Everett, why?”

The second time he zaps me, it feels harsher. Like he’s upped the voltage.

I’m this close to blacking out.

“Why?” I growl, staring at him.

A sick, wicked smirk grazes his lips. His dark gaze lands on me. “Because I want to.”

“But—”

“I’m not a good person. I warned you.” Thick eyebrows lower over narrowed eyes. “Life has hardened me. Has changed me into a harsh and cruel man. Loving you won’t turn back time. Nothing will. Not because I love you any less than the people in my past. You’re fucking perfect. So loved. I’m the flawed one. The broken. The ugly. That’s me. Your husband.”

Though tremors still run through me, my heart gallops. Wetness pools between my thighs, and my breasts swell.

This isn’t right. This is all kinds of messed up. Another proof of how broken I am.

How unwell the two of us are.

“You can hate me. Curse me. Try to change me.” Every word is deliberate. “It won’t make any difference. I won’t be any less of a bastard. But you’ll love me through it all, just as much as I love you.”

Relief floods me. He isn’t upset over something I’ve done wrong.

He’s just being himself.

That means the next step is going to be what I’m aching for. “Do you want me to climb on top of you? Or maybe you want to?—”

“Aurora.”

His eyes close. His chest expands.

When he stares at me again, I see amusement in his eyes. A glimmer that gives away his thoughts before they materialize on his lips. “There won’t be a day that I won’t want to fuck you. But sometimes I’d enjoy other things.”

“Like what?” I lick my parched lips. That gets me even more of his attention. More of his heated stares.

“Like controlling you.” He places his hand on the arm of his chair, the remote gripped between his long, elegant fingers. “Now, stop being a brat and wasting my time. Come. Here.”

Embarrassment and arousal shouldn’t mix. Ever. But with him, they do. So sharp it’s overwhelming.

I crawl toward him, my belly tightening, low and insistent. Can’t be my period. I’ve got a few days before it starts. Maybe this is what it feels like to love a dark, dangerous man, twisted in all the best ways.

Everett is the force that runs through me. He’s the man who controls my body. My emotions.

My bleeding heart belongs to him.

Same as I do when he feeds me, I stop right here, between his spread legs.

“That’s my good girl.” God, my obsession with his praise, I can’t help it. He presses a finger beneath my chin, tipping my face up. “Tell me. What rattled you back there at the meeting?”

Emotion curls around me. Warm and overwhelming. When Everett folds me into his arms, it reminds me of what his care feels like.

That’s when I feel the safest to talk to him about what happened before he saved me from my father. I tell him whatWinston said. How he saidher. Like he knew my mom. The one part I skip is what Ivy told me. She can keep her judgmental attitude to herself.

When I’m done, Everett’s expression hardens. His features freeze. His gaze is unreadable.