Page 58 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The space between us snaps like overstretched wire. His words still hang in the air, sharp and immovable: Cages are what keep predators out.

But the heat in his eyes says something else entirely.

I don’t step back. I don’t fold. My body is trembling, yes—but it’s not only fear. It’s fury. It’s need. It’s something darker, something Elias seems determined to carve out of me until I can’t hide it anymore.

When I tell him the predator is already in the room, it feels like handing him a match. And he lights it without hesitation.

I stay pinned against the dresser. His other hand grips my jaw, not hard enough to bruise but enough to remind me he could. Always could. His mouth is so close that the heat of him skims my lips, and I hate the way my body arches toward it without permission.

“You want to call me the predator?” he murmurs, voice thick, threaded with something lethal. “Then stop trembling like prey.”

My pulse hammers under his grip. “You don’t scare me.”

His laugh is rough, like it’s been dragged over broken stone. “You should.”

Then his mouth is on mine again. Not tender, not coaxing. A brutal claiming that leaves no room to breathe. His teeth catch my lower lip, tugging until pain sparks and pools straight between my thighs.

I shove at his chest, not because I want him gone, but because I need to push back.

I need to feel him meet me with the same violence I’ve been carrying inside since the clinic.

He doesn’t stumble. He lets me shove, lets me rage against the wall of his body—then tightens his grip on my wrist, he pushes harder, pinning me to the dresser mirror.

The edge is cold against my back. His body is heat, pressing, caging.

“Say you don’t want this,” he commands again. His mouth hovers at my ear, words like fire against my skin.

I should. I should tell him no. I should demand he let me go.

But my voice betrays me, spilling the only truth left inside me. “I can’t.”

He growls, a sound that vibrates through my ribs. His thigh pushes between mine, pressing up until friction sparks through my jeans, raw and unbearable.

My gasp turns into a moan I can’t swallow. His smile burns against my throat.

“That’s it,” he says. “That’s the sound I want. Not fear. Not denial. Submission.”

My body jolts at the word. Submission. It tastes like shame, like every weakness I’ve fought to bury. But it also coils through me with heat so thick I can’t stand straight.

“Fuck you,” I hiss, even as my hips grind against the pressure of his leg.

His grip tightens, cutting off escape. “No. You’ll beg me to.”

His words strike something raw inside me. You’ll beg me to.

It’s not a threat. It’s a certainty.

Elias doesn’t release my wrists. My chest heaves with the effort to keep defiance in my face when the rest of me betrays exactly how badly I want him.

I twist, but he holds me tighter. His thumb presses into the pulse at my wrist, measuring every racing beat. “You fight with your mouth, but your body knows me,” he says. “It’s already giving in.”

My breath shudders out. “You don’t get to—”

“I do,” he cuts in, and the finality in his tone makes me ache.

He drags my hands forward as he moves to release himself; his belt buckle scrapes against the back of my knuckles.

He lets go only long enough to pull the leather from its loops in one swift motion.

The sound slices through me, sharp, certain.

My stomach knots. My thighs tighten. I can’t look away as he loops the belt around my wrists and cinches it fast, binding me together. The leather bites just enough to remind me it isn’t for show.

I should pull away. I should scream. Instead, I test the hold and feel a rush of heat flood me when it doesn’t give.

Elias watches my face the whole time, his eyes steel-gray and merciless. “There’s the truth,” he murmurs. “You don’t want freedom. You want to be held so tight there’s no choice left to make.”

I shake my head, though the sound that slips from me ruins the denial. “You think this proves anything?”

He steps back half an inch, enough that I feel the loss of his body like a wound. Then he drags his gaze down me, slow, dissecting. “It proves everything.”

My arms are bound. My legs tremble. My chest rises too fast against my shirt. I should feel trapped. Instead, I feel exposed in a way I can’t name—like he’s stripped me bare without taking off a single piece of clothing.

He presses his thigh between mine again, harder this time, forcing me onto my toes. My bound wrists slam against his chest for balance. “Rub yourself on me,” he says. “Show me how much you hate this.”

My heart lurches, but I can’t stop my body from obeying. The friction is brutal through denim, rough and merciless, and it drags a sound from me that doesn’t sound like me at all.

His hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back so he can watch every flicker of shame in my eyes. “That’s it. That’s the part of you I’ve been waiting for. The part that knows surrender isn’t weakness. It’s power.”

My throat burns. My skin feels too tight. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that I’m not his, that I’ll never beg.

But I’m already moving against him, every roll of my hips giving him exactly what he wants.

Elias’s thigh grinds harder between mine, and my bound wrists strain against the belt pressing into his chest. He watches every flicker across my face, the way my mouth parts, the way my eyes blur with shame and hunger.

“Look at you,” he says, his voice rougher now, stripped of the polish he wears in daylight. “You’d burn me alive if you could. And yet….” His thigh pushes up again, grinding into me with ruthless precision. “You’re soaking through your jeans for me.”

Heat scorches my skin. I choke on a sound I can’t swallow back. “Fuck you.”

His hand knots tighter in my hair, jerking my head back until my spine curves. His mouth finds the corner of mine, not a kiss, but a claiming. “You already are.”

Before I can form another protest, his free hand yanks my hoodie up over my ribs. My shirt comes with it, dragged until both are bunched around my bound arms, trapping them awkwardly there. The fabric cinches tight at my elbows, holding me even tighter.

The shock of exposure makes me gasp. His eyes lock on the swell of my breasts, the black lace straining against them.

He doesn’t ask. He tears. The lace splits with a harsh rip, leaving me bare from the waist up while my wrists remain tangled in fabric, pinned and useless.

The sound that escapes me is half fury, half raw want. My nipples tighten instantly, aching in the open air. His thumb finds one and pinches hard, the pain so sharp it ricochets into pleasure.

“Mine,” he growls, dragging his mouth down my throat, biting hard enough to mark, then sucking until I know the bruise will bloom dark across my skin. “Every scar, every shiver, every fucking inch of you is mine.”

My knees nearly buckle, but his thigh holds me up, grinding exactly where I can’t stand it. My wrists fight the leather binding them, not to escape, but because I want to touch him, want to claw him open the way he’s doing to me.

“Let me—” My voice cracks. “Elias, please—”

He pulls back just enough to look at me, his hand still torturing my nipple, his thigh still pinning me in place. “Please what?”

Shame and desire knot in my chest, warring for dominance. I want to tell him to stop, to let me go. But the truth claws its way out instead, raw and humiliating. “Please touch me.”

His smile is pure sin. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He turns me in one brutal motion, bending me over the dresser so my bound wrists and the bunched fabric of my hoodie and shirt grind into the polished wood.

The layers knot tight around my arms, locking me in place.

The surface is cold under my chest, a sharp bite against overheated skin. He kicks my legs apart with his knee.

The first drag of his hand down the curve of my ass makes me jolt. His knuckles skim the denim seam, then he unbuttons my jeans, slow enough to make my hips twist, and peels them down inch by inch.

The belt traps my arms. My cheek presses to the dresser. I can see his reflection in the dark glass of the window across the room—broad shoulders, every movement cut with ruthless control.

His palm presses between my legs, cupping me over the thin cotton of my panties, and the contact steals a broken sound from my throat.

“Already dripping,” he says. “For a man you swore you hated.”

His fingers press harder, rubbing circles that make my knees shake. Then he hooks the fabric aside and slides two fingers between my folds, spreading me open. The slick sound fills the air, obscene and undeniable.

“God, Mara.” His voice is strained, ragged now. “You’re perfect like this. Bound, desperate, trying so fucking hard not to beg.”

His fingers thrust into me, curling just right, and I cry out, arching against him. The belt digs into my wrists. The dresser digs into my ribs. None of it matters. I want more.

“Say it,” he demands, his fingers pumping harder, faster. “Say you need me.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting it, holding on to the last shred of defiance. But his thumb finds my clit, circles with ruthless precision, and the pressure shatters me.

“I need you!” The words rip from me like a confession I can’t take back.

His body presses flush against mine from behind, his cock hard and heavy against my ass through his pants. “Good girl.” His voice is a groan against my ear. “Now you’ll get me.”

He yanks his zipper down, the sound jagged and final, and positions himself at my entrance, the blunt head of him sliding through my slick folds. I whimper, already stretched from his fingers, but this is thicker, harder, unrelenting.

Then he drives in, one brutal thrust that pushes me flat against the dresser, and the scream that rips out of me is equal parts pain and relief.

“Fuck—” I gasp, shaking, clenching around him.