Page 70 of He Sees You

I claw at his hand, but he's too strong. With his other hand, he grabs my shirt, tears it open. Buttons scatter across the floor like broken teeth.

"Stop—"

"Stop? Your heroines never really mean stop, do they?" His hand moves from my throat to my hair, yanking my head back. "They always end up begging for more. End up falling for the man who takes what he wants."

I spit in his face.

He backhands me, hard enough to split my lip.

I taste copper, see stars.

When my vision clears, he's smiling.

"There she is. TherealCeleste. Not the sheriff's perfect daughter. Not the successful author. Just another whore who spreads her legs for killers."

He grabs me again, throws me onto the bed.

I try to roll away, but he's on me, his weight crushing, his hands everywhere.

This is happening.

This isactuallyhappening.

All my dark fantasies, all my written scenes about violence and desire—none of them prepared me for the reality of being truly powerless.

"I loved you," he says, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand while the other roams my body. "For fifteen years, I loved you. Waited for you. And you gave yourself to him. A freak who plays violin and collects bones. A killer."

"He's more man than you'll ever be?—"

Jake hits me again, this time with a closed fist.

My cheekbone explodes with pain.

"We'll see about that when I'm done with you. When you're ruined for anyone else." He's fumbling with his belt now, and terror finally breaks through my shock. "Your precious Cain won't want you when you smell like me. When you're marked by me."

Then suddenly, impossibly, the weight is gone.

Jake doesn't scream.

He doesn't have time.

One moment he's on top of me, the next he's being dragged backward by something—someone—in black.

Cain.

He doesn't speak.

Doesn't announce himself.

Just carefully, silently, breaks Jake's right arm at the elbow.

The crack echoes through the room like a gunshot.

Jake's scream follows a second later, high and breathless.

"You touched her." Cain's voice is calm, conversational, as if discussing the weather. "You put your hands on what's mine."

He breaks Jake's other arm just as efficiently, then his right knee, dropping him to the floor.