Page 69 of Intense (Beneath The Blaze #3)
STEPHANIE
Song- can you see me in the dark? Halestorm,
I Prevail.
I feel his presence without needing my eyes.
His breathing. That sharp, controlled rhythm I’ve learned to read like a language. The way my body reacts to him without permission.
Nyx has loosened even further around my throat, her body heavy but no longer threatening.
That moment she settled there, I thought it was over, that she’d keep tightening until there was nothing left.
But she didn’t.
She accepted me. And I accepted her.
I understand now why Finn trusts her. She’s like him, calculating, reading every detail, and assessing in ways most people could never comprehend.
“Finn,” I whisper.
I flinch when his fingers brush my cheek, but the instinct fades, and I lean into his touch.
“You passed.”
The air leaves my lungs in a long, shaky exhale, as if he’s just cut a dead weight from my shoulders.
“H-how did you know she wouldn’t kill me?”
I can feel the grin in his voice without even seeing it.
“Because I wouldn’t have let her.”
My heart thunders as he pulls the blindfold up. Light floods my vision, making me blink until my eyes lock on his.
There’s life there again. That cold, brutal mask is gone.
“How does it feel?” His fingers trail slowly down my arms, tracing the edge between comfort and possession.
“Perfect,” I answer. And it’s the truth. Not to win his forgiveness, not to impress him. I would make the same choices again.
Maybe in hindsight, I’d have told him sooner. I’d have stopped trying to figure out everything by myself and let him in, instead of fighting him. But I don’t want him to love some fake version of me.
The truth is a relief. His acceptance is all I want. Not to be boxed in as the perfect wife. Not to be fixed.
I’m not broken.
I’ve been hurt. I’ve been hunted. But I fought my way to here.
“Is the trial over?”
He bends down on one knee, removing the chains on my ankles. When he stands, he kicks my legs apart and steps between them, heat radiating through me. Nyx’s weight against my neck keeps me rooted in the reminder that she’s still there.
His hands slide up my thighs.
“Do you want it to be over,” he murmurs, “or do you want a final trial?”
His palm stops at my hip.
“Do you forgive me?” I ask.
He leans in, dragging his tongue along my cheek. The sound I make is half-whimper, half-need.
“Do you forgive me, love? I can’t take back what you’ve seen. What you know about me. What I do. The evil under my skin. Can you forgive the man who could have killed you?”
I breathe in, the air shaking in my chest.
“I always saw your darkness. That’s what drew me in. Now, it just makes sense. We’re not too dissimilar, Dr. Quinn.”
His fingers tighten on my thigh, claiming me.
“That is my fear, temptress. You can still count your kills on your hands. I could own an entire graveyard. There is nothing good inside of me, Stephanie.”
He grips my chin, forcing my eyes to his. My body shivers under the pressure of his touch.
“There is only goodness in me when you’re inside of me, Finn.”
I bite my lip and bat my lashes, watching the smirk climb his mouth.
“I’m deadly serious.”
“I know. So am I.” My voice is sweet as I open my legs wider.
“You think maybe we could forgive each other?”
His gaze moves over my face, deliberate and heavy.
“I think that is possible, love. Only if—” he pauses, sliding his hand beneath my panties “—you pass this last test.”
I lift my hips in answer, and he chuckles low.
“Remember who’s around your throat, Stephanie. Remember what she can do. The risk. The pleasure.”
I suck in a breath.
Nyx shifts against my skin, her body flexing with slow, deliberate power. Each movement is a whisper of scales, a reminder that one wrong signal from me—or from him—and this moment could end in death.
Finn’s fingers stroke over the edge of my panties, dragging the thin fabric against my skin until my breath hitches. His other hand rests on the arm of the chair beside my cuffed wrist, his weight caging me in completely.
“I can feel your pulse from here,” he murmurs, his mouth hovering over mine. “It’s racing, temptress.”
“Maybe I like the risk, or maybe it’s just you,” I breathe.
His eyes darken, and for a moment I can’t tell if it’s lust, amusement, or that lethal edge that has always lived inside him.
Nyx adjusts her coil, the pressure feather-light along my throat, and my heart rate spikes again. He notices, of course he notices, and his lips curve into something dangerous.
“That’s the thing about fear,” he says softly. “It sharpens everything else. Every touch. Every sound. Every taste.”
He presses his mouth to my jaw.
“She knows you now,” he continues, his voice low, his fingers slipping beneath the lace. “But, you haven’t earned her trust yet. So she is still a threat to you; she will be reading my reactions, going off my cues to keep you alive. ”
My thighs tense, but I don’t pull away. If anything, I push into his touch, the cuffed restraints biting into my wrists as I strain toward him.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks, his lips brushing my ear, the question nothing more than a taunt.
I shake my head. “No.”
Nyx’s tongue flicks against my skin, tasting my accelerated pulse, and my breath stutters. The combination of the deadly caress of her body and the claiming roughness of his fingers is overwhelming, blurring the edge between panic and pleasure.
“Good fuckin’ girl.” His mouth finds mine in a hard, consuming kiss, swallowing the sound I make when his hand moves lower.
Every muscle in my body is taut, caught between the cold thrill of knowing she could end me and the heat of knowing he never will.
I like being choked. When Finn wraps his hand around my throat, I come alive.
But this? This is a whole new dimension.
A snake coiled around my neck. A fucking snake necklace. All while my crazy husband is on his knees, eating me out like he’s starved himself all day just for me.
And it’s kind of perfect. Walking that line between life and death. Pain and pleasure. Fear and desire.
I don’t know where the trial ends and the surrender begins.
And maybe that’s the point.
I surrender to him only.