Page 21 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)

Chapter Eleven

Brooklyn

T he world blinks out in a snap of branches, and then I am on my back, gasping, pinned to the forest floor with a couple hundred pounds of muscle and adrenaline crushing the air from my lungs.

My heart rabbit-hammers against my ribs. Every sense is sharp, the cold of the ground seeping through the back of my shirt, the needles of pain as twigs snap under my shoulder blades, the rasp of his breath close enough to steal every molecule of oxygen before I can get it.

Above me, the sky is slashed open by pine boughs, sunlight caught and scattered through their fingers.

Shadows strip us both down to sinew and intent.

His mask is gone—ripped away in the struggle, or maybe discarded to make it personal—and his face is a map of sweat, blood, and a hunger I don’t want to understand.

I twist, kick, try to bridge my hips and throw him off, but he rides the motion like he’s welded to me. My wrists are in his fists, yanked above my head and held in a single, unbreakable grip. The pressure is so complete I can’t feel my fingers, only the throb of blood desperate to escape.

I try to scream. All I manage is a ragged gasp and a mouthful of pine needles.

“Let me go!” My voice is barely sound, more a gasp than a demand, but I say it again, just to hear myself fight.

He smiles. Not a gentle smile, not a patient one—this is a knife’s edge, white and wild and deliberate. There’s a wet streak across his jaw that might be my blood.

“Why would I let you go, little fox?”

I buck again, useless, but I have to try. He shifts his weight so our hips are flush, his thighs locking around mine. I can feel the ridge of his hard-on, obvious and obscene, through the damp denim. The knowledge hits me like a slap: this is not about fear. Not for him. Maybe not even for me.

His eyes search my face, slow and dark, cataloguing every flinch. He watches the way I twist, the muscles in my throat, the pulse at my collarbone. He studies me the way a botanist might a rare flower: with the certainty that he can rip me open and still keep me alive.

My mouth is thick with blood and spit and humiliation.

Desire.

“You don’t even know me,” I manage. It comes out half-broken, childish, and I hate myself for the weakness.

He leans down, lips at my ear, so close I can feel the heat of each word.

“Yes, I do.”

A pause. The world holds its breath.

“Brooklyn.”

My whole body freezes. There’s a moment—a real, honest moment—where I believe he will kill me just to savor the fear. Instead, he pulls back, face exposed in the moonlight, and says, “I’m Slade. But you can call me Sir.”

The humiliation is nuclear. Feeling this way, desiring destruction only to be pulled back at the last moment.

There’s not a place that doesn’t feel the burn of need and I hate myself for it.

Desperate little wench. I try to spit at him, but my mouth is too dry.

I glare instead, the only weapon I have left.

His gaze flickers, from my eyes to my mouth, to the line of my throat. He holds it there for a moment, then shifts, grinding down so hard I think my pelvis will crack. I make a noise—pain or protest, I don’t know—but he just laughs.

“You like the fight. I can see it. I can feel it.” He bites the word feel, and for a second I want to believe it’s just a game, some fucked up wild test of wills, but I know better. He means every word.

I twist again, and my wrist slips in his grip. For a heartbeat, I think I can get free—but the motion rips my hand across a sharp rock embedded in the dirt. The pain is instant and electric, and blood wells up, hot and fast.

He notices. Of course he notices. His head snaps down, eyes narrow, locked on the new bright smear across my palm.

“Look at that,” he says, almost reverent. “You bleed so beautifully for me.”

He shifts his weight, freeing one hand. He brings my wrist to his mouth, eyes never leaving mine, and licks the blood from my skin in one slow, deliberate stripe. His tongue is hot and smooth, scraping the wound, sucking hard enough to make me hiss.

I should be disgusted, but what I feel is closer to awe. Or maybe terror. Maybe both.

He groans, low in his chest, as if the taste is some long-awaited reward. He pulls my hand away from his mouth, blood smeared across his lips, and grins.

“Holy,” he says. “That’s the word. You taste holy.”

I want to pull my hand away, but his grip is absolute.

He brings his mouth down on mine, teeth catching my lower lip, forcing it open. I taste my own blood and the heat of him, the salt and the spit and the insane, overwhelming fact that I am kissing the man who just hunted me for sport.

I let him, because it’s easier than fighting.

And because I want to know what happens when I surrender.

He kisses me hard, almost brutal, then pulls back, panting.

“Don’t ever run from me again,” he says, voice gone raw. “I don’t like when you bleed anywhere but on me, or in my mouth.”

I stare up at him, vision haloed by pain and adrenaline, and say the only thing I can think:

“Yes, Sir.”

His smile softens, just a shade. “Good girl.”

He shifts again, settling his weight between my legs, and I feel what’s coming.

I am not ready.

I want it anyway.

He holds my bloody hand in both of his, cradling it as if I am something delicate—a contradiction so jarring I want to laugh, or scream, or pass out. He brings it to his mouth and licks the cut again, slower this time, tip of his tongue prodding at the edges as if he’s searching for more.

His eyes are on mine, black and bottomless. He doesn’t blink. I can’t, either. My gaze is nailed to his, the space between us collapsing to a point of contact: his mouth, my blood, our joined intent.

He sucks at the wound, tongue lapping in slow, hypnotic circles, and for a moment I don’t feel the pain. I don’t feel anything except the shockwave of electricity shooting up my arm, through my chest, and down, down, down to where my thighs are pressed together in mute, treacherous need.

This is the part where I should faint, or dissociate, or at least try to scream again. But all I do is watch, breath shallow, chest heaving, as he tastes every last drop.

The sun overhead is huge and bright, and it catches the fox charm he left me, making it glow like a warning or a beacon or both.

It rests against the hollow of my throat, cold at first, but warming with the heat of my skin.

The necklace feels heavier now, like a yoke or a leash. Like a mark of property.

He releases my hand, but only to snake his fingers around my wrist, tracing the pulse point as if he can count every beat.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “So beautiful when you hurt for me.”

I flinch at the words, but the echo of them slips between my ribs and finds a home in my heart.

His other hand moves down, palming my hip, then sliding under the torn edge of my shirt. He traces the curve of my waist, calloused thumb grazing my side, before moving up, up, up to the place where my ribs flare and my breathing is most frantic.

He stops at my breast, letting his palm settle over the nipple, thumb circling with slow, inexorable pressure.

My nipples go hard instantly—traitors, like the rest of me. I feel them through the thin cotton, feel the way he notices, the way his grin curves with satisfaction.

I want to pull away, but I don’t. I let him. I let him rub and squeeze and tease until I am arching up into his hand, desperate and embarrassed and so, so alive.

His lips move to my ear. He doesn’t kiss, not at first, just breathes in, out, slow and measured.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asks, words a caress. “To be hunted, caught, claimed?”

“No,” I whisper, voice so soft it’s almost imaginary.

He laughs, deep in his chest. “Liar.”

His hand slides lower, shifting his body off of me so he can get the right angle, to my belly, and then further, fingers hooking into the waistband of my panties. He hesitates—just for a second—then slips his hand inside.

He cups me, fingers spreading, feeling everything.

I am so wet it’s mortifying.

His body shudders, and he groans, actually groans, as if my arousal is the best thing he’s ever known.

“You’re perfect,” he says, and for a second, his voice is almost gentle.

He slides one finger through my lips, teasing, testing. I gasp, back arching off the forest floor, and the motion brings the necklace tight against my throat.

The world around us vanishes: the chill in the air, the whisper of pine needles, the ache in my scraped knees, my cut hand. Everything . There is only his hand, his mouth, his eyes, and the wild, animal heat spreading through my core.

He withdraws his fingers, just enough to study them glistening. He brings them to his lips, sucks, slow and deliberate. Eyes never leaving mine.

“I could eat you alive,” he whispers.

I don’t answer, because I know it’s true.

He kisses me again, harder this time, biting at my lip until I taste blood and salt and the promise of more. His hand is back between my legs, this time two fingers pushing inside, filling me so suddenly I cry out, the sound raw and unfiltered.

He fucks me with his fingers, slow at first, then faster, thumb rubbing circles over my clit, building pressure and need until I can’t see straight, can’t think, can only feel.

“Look at me,” he commands, voice sharp.

I do. I look, and in that gaze I see the whole story: the hunger, the obsession, the need to break and be broken.

He curls his fingers, hits a spot that makes my vision go white. I jerk, crying out again, and he bites my neck, hard, marking me as his own.

“Come for me,” he growls. “Now.”

And I do. I convulse around his hand, wave after wave, helpless to stop it, helpless to care. I am lost, undone, ruined.

He withdraws slowly, savoring every aftershock, every twitch of my body.

He kisses my forehead, once, surprisingly tender.

“You’re mine, baby girl, from the moment I first saw you,” he whispers.

I nod, and this time, I don’t even try to lie.