Page 47 of Hunted to Be Mine

“Fuck, Selina.” It sounded like a prayer.

I moved first, testing. The drag made both of us groan. He answered with a thrust, shallow, then another, deeper, the slide wet. He kept the bandaged hand at my throat, steadying me, his gaze locked on mine. His other hand caught my knee and hitched it higher on his hip. The angle changed sharply, and made my spine arch.

“Right there.” The plea broke when he thrust again.

“Yeah.” His mouth twitched, almost smiling. “Take it.”

He set a pace that hurt good. Long drives that bottomed out and dragged slowly on the way back, letting me feel every inch. Then shorter ones, quick, turning my gasps into something needy. He watched every flinch, every reaction, adjusting perfectly. Sweat slid down his throat. A vein pulsed at his temple. His jaw stayed tight; he was holding back from taking me into the mattress until I screamed.

“Harder,” I demanded. “Specter, harder.”

His control slipped. He gripped my wrists in one hand and shoved them higher, pinning them to the headboard. That drove him deeper. He withdrew until the head nearly left me, then thrust hard enough that my vision blurred. The headboard hit the wall in a steady rhythm, and I flushed. I didn’t care. I wanted the neighbors to hear.

“Say it,” he growled out, driving into me. “Whose pussy is this?”

“Mine,” I answered, teeth bared. “You get to borrow it.”

He laughed, a rough sound escaping him, and fucked me harder. The hand at my throat slid to my chest, two fingers pressing above my sternum, pinning me. He knew. He worked around it without me asking, no pressure on my windpipe, only weight that grounded me in the bed, in us.

“Smart girl,” he said. “Keep breathing. Come on my cock.”

I tipped. It built fast, brutal, the slap of our bodies sending heat through everything. He dragged his thumb over my clit and the world exploded. Pleasure shot down my spine and broke me. I cried out, loud, and clamped around him, convulsing. He groaned hard, his thrusts breaking, control gone.

“Fuck…”

I rode it, took every thrust he gave until he locked deep and froze. The tendons in his neck stood out. His mouth opened, wordless. I felt him pulse through the condom, deep inside me.He held there, buried, body rigid, then shuddered down slowly, forehead dropping to mine.

Silence took over, heavy with breath and skin. The throbbing of his cock faded slowly inside me. The bandage at my throat had left a rasp that matched the ache between my thighs. Everything smelled like salt and winter air from the window and us.

“You still with me?” he asked at the corner of my mouth.

“I’m right here.” I slid my wrists from his hold and cupped his jaw, thumb on the scar. “You?”

His clear gray eyes searched mine. No distance or haze in them. He blinked once, stunned, and made a sound that might have been a laugh or something else.

“Yeah.” He kissed me softly. “Here.”

My thighs trembled around his hips. He eased out slowly, condom sliding, both of us wincing. He tied it off, tossed it away without looking, then braced on his good hand above me, careful with the bandaged one. I watched and felt something shift in my chest, not breaking, not healing, just moving.

I drew his hurt hand to my mouth and kissed the gauze. He watched as if I’d shocked him. His throat worked.

“Don’t say anything,” I whispered.

He didn’t. He just lowered himself to my side, half on, half off, careful not to crush me but staying close. I inched closer and listened to the pulse under my ear.

No program. No seizure. No lies.

Only him. Only me. And the mess we’d chosen.

Chapter 12

Selina

The winter air bit my cheeks as we stepped out of the cramped stairwell of our rented studio and into a narrow street in Žižkov. Steam pushed from my mouth and blew away on the wind funneled between old buildings. This wasn’t the postcard part of Prague. No spires. No cobblestone squares. Just worn apartments and people who didn’t care about tourists.

Specter tugged his scarf higher, hiding his mouth. His eyes kept moving, checking windows, corners, reflections. Thirty hours since Munich. Thirty hours since I’d straddled him on a snow-buried balcony and kissed the self-hate down long enough for him to breathe. Since I’d shown him I wasn’t afraid of what lived under all that control.

We kept moving. A stolen car with Czech plates. A bus with too-curious passengers. This studio with a sagging mattress and stubborn heat. In between, we worked on his broken memories: children, blood, and donuts with purple filling that set everything off.