Page 29 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)

His grip loosens. I stay in place, breathless, trying to make sense of what’s just happened.

The knife is still on the floor, gleaming in the broken sunlight.

But for the first time, I don’t want to pick it up.

I want to know what he means. I want to know if there’s anything left of me that’s worth saving. Worth loving.

He lets go, steps back, and waits for me to decide.

I don't think; I just move. Instinct, or some ancient script burned into my bones, takes over. The knife is on the floor between us, a streak of sunlight cutting across the blade. I drop to one knee, pick it up, and test its weight in my palm.

He doesn’t flinch. His chest is bare, breath still ragged from the struggle.

A line of sweat slides between his pecs and disappears into the trail of hair leading down his belly button.

He’s watching me, but not with fear. With hunger.

With the focus of a wolf. I could slit his throat right now. I believe he would let me.

“Let me taste you,” I say, surprised by how steady I sound.

He nods, slow, careful, like he’s giving me the keys to the kingdom and daring me to drive off a cliff.

I close the distance, knife up, arm stretched straight out the way he taught me in the woods. The tip hovers just above his breastbone, right over the scar that runs vertical down his sternum. My hand trembles, just a little.

He looks at the knife, then at my face. “Do it.”

I press the blade to his skin. Not hard enough to break, not yet. I look up. He holds my gaze. He wants this. He wants me to have the power. Or maybe, he just wants to see what I’ll do with it.

I drag the edge along the path of the scar, slow and deliberate. His body is a map, and I am tracing the borders, learning the country inch by inch. The blade doesn’t bite at first, just leaves a red line where the pressure draws blood to the surface.

Then I press harder. It parts the skin, blood wells up in a thin, bright bead. His breath hitches, but he doesn’t move. I pull the knife across his chest, drawing a shallow line from nipple to nipple. The blood beads, then runs, hot and coppery. It looks fake. It looks perfect.

I want to taste it.

So I do. I lean in, tongue out, and lap at the line, smearing the blood across his skin with my mouth.

It’s metallic, sharp, sweeter than I expect.

I don’t stop. I run the knife up his shoulder, score a second line along the meat of his bicep.

The blood is thicker here, slower to rise.

I smear it with my thumb, then with the palm of my hand.

He groans, low in his chest, a sound so animal I can feel it vibrating through my teeth.

I push him back, hard. He stumbles, then sits on the edge of the bed.

I climb on top, straddling his thighs, my knees pressed tight to his hips.

The knife is still in my hand, sticky now, handle slick with blood and sweat.

I run it along his jaw, then down to his neck, pressing just enough to leave a line but not a cut.

“You’re not scared?” I ask.

He smiles, blood and spit smeared across his teeth. “Not of you.”

I slap him, flat across the cheek, before leaning forward.

The sound echoes off the walls. He just grins wider and grabs my chin, kissing me, forcing his tongue in my mouth and teasing me before I break it.

Chest heaving, I push him until he lays down, arms stretched out under his head, watching me.

I slice a line down his abdomen, right below the ribs, and let the blood run. It pools in the valleys of his stomach, slow and lazy. I dip my fingers in, paint circles on his chest, then drag them up to my own lips. I taste him, and it’s erotic. It’s proof. It’s power. It’s communion.

He’s hard under me, the press of his cock so obvious it hurts. Neither of us have anything separating the contact and my pussy is already soaking him. I rock my hips, grinding against him, and he throws his head back, eyes rolling up, lost in the feeling.

I drop the knife. My hands are stained red, the lines in my palm filled with him.

I grab his wrists, pin them above his head.

His arms are longer, stronger, but he lets me.

He wants to be held down, wants to know what I’ll do when he’s helpless.

My tits slap him in the face and he grabs one in his mouth and sucks, biting down until it hurts.

I’m throbbing, aching, desire and need rolling inside me like a storm. I can’t take it. I can’t hate the man who has stoked a raging fire in me unlike any other. I hate that I don’t hate him.

Leaning back, I lift my hips ever so slightly, lining him up, bare and ready, and sink onto him with a gasp.

He fills me, stretches me, so hot and deep I almost lose myself.

I ride him, slow at first, then faster, using his own body as leverage.

The blood smears between us, sticky and wet, painting our skin.

I dig my nails into the lines I just cut, and he bucks, hips lifting off the bed with the force of it.

“Look at me,” I say, voice rough.

He does. His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide, face flushed and raw. There’s no anger. Only want.

I grind down, rubbing my clit against the base of him, using his blood as paint, as proof of ownership. My cunt clenches, tight and greedy. He groans, louder now, head pressed back into the pillow.

I fuck him, hard, slamming down over and over until I see stars. I’m close, closer than I thought possible. My thighs shake, my hands tremble, but I keep moving.

He’s losing control, I can feel it. His hands clench, fingers white on my hips, but he doesn’t take over. He lets me have it, all of it.

I come with a scream, full-body, a convulsion that tears through me and leaves me wrung out, spent, holy. My nails leave crescent moons in his chest, my teeth find his shoulder and bite down, hard enough to bruise.

He follows, shuddering, a flood of heat that fills me, marks me as his.

I collapse on top of him, a mess of blood and sweat and come, tangled in each other and the sheets. I roll off, land beside him, staring at the ceiling as the world slows and finally stops spinning.

The knife is on the floor, forgotten.

His hand finds mine, sticky and warm, and squeezes.

I let him.

For a long time, neither of us speaks. The only sound is the twin drumbeat of our hearts, slowing in time.

After a while, I prop myself up on one elbow, look at him, really look. He’s covered in blood, my fingerprints all over his skin, the cuts already clotting.

“You’re something else,” I say, but there’s no anger in it. Only awe.

He turns his head, looks back at me. His face is soft, almost gentle.

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be, little fox,” he says.

I laugh, a sound ripped from somewhere deep. It feels good. It feels like winning.

He pulls me in, cradles me against his chest, and I let him. The heat of his body is the only thing keeping me whole. Keeping me together.

We lie like that, blood drying on our skin, the ruins of the bedroom around us.

I’m safe. Here in his arms. I’m loved, as much as a psychotic, brooding man could love. For now, that’s enough.

Tomorrow, I might hate him again. Tomorrow, I might run. But tonight, I am the hunter.

And he is mine.