Page 71 of Intense (Beneath The Blaze #3)
STEPHANIE
H e carefully removes Nyx from my neck before settling her around his. It’s almost as if they calm each other, like two predators that only breathe easy in the presence of their own.
“What happens now, Finn? You know everything. I’ve played by your rules, your trials. You know everything, yet you’re still hiding from me.”
His stare doesn’t falter. Not even a flicker.
He simply nods, then moves behind me. I hear the faint rustle before he returns without Nyx. Without a word, he unbinds my wrists. I shake them out, blood rushing back in sharp pins and needles.
My whole body is wound tight.
When I stand, I lay my hands flat against his shirt, feeling the rapid thud of his heart under my palm.
“See? You aren’t a robot. I can feel it right here.” I look up at him.
“My heart only beats for one person, love.”
My breath catches in my throat. I slide my hand down and capture his, guiding it over my own chest.
“So does mine.”
He leans down, his lips crashing over mine. I hook my arms around his neck, pulling him closer and closer until there’s no space left.
I want him to consume me. Poison me.
We bleed from the same wounds. He knows what haunts me. I want to know what terrorizes him.
“It’s not always a bad thing to put your trust in someone else, Finn,” I whisper against his lips.
“Your blind trust nearly killed us both.”
I shake my head.
“I trusted your heart would win over your head, that’s all. It’s in there, and it beats for me. This is real, Dr. Quinn. Whether you want to accept it or not. We found each other for a reason. Let me in. Please?”
His breath is warm against my skin.
Then he pulls back, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it off his shoulders. My eyes trace the ink etched into his skin, but they linger on the scars. They’re small and scattered. I step closer, fingertips brushing over his shoulders.
On closer look, they’re not random. Scratches. Deep ones. From nails. My heart twists, remembering the way he clawed at himself in his sleep.
The nightmares.
“I won’t be able to tell you,” he says quietly.
I bite my tongue. Maybe it will take time. Maybe I’ll never know what haunts him.
Then he retreats into the chair, muscles flexing as he sets both wrists on the arms.
“I won’t be able to freely say it. But you can force it out of me. You can hurt me enough for me to tell you.”
My mouth parts.
“Stephanie, hurt me until I tell you the truth.”
He locks one wrist into the restraint with a sharp click.
“It’s the only way I can let you in.”
There’s almost fear in his voice, but his face is carved in stone.
I step forward, bend down, and secure his other wrist.
“I can’t hurt you back like this. You’re safe from me,” he whispers.
“I never was worried about myself with you.”
“Grab one of the metal trays. They have a variety of instruments. You have my permission to do what you want. I’m on trial now. Extract what you can. This is your one and only opportunity, love.”
I turn toward the metal trays, my pulse pounding in my ears. Stainless steel glints under the light. Forceps, scalpels, clamps, and tools that could break a body down piece by piece. God, the fun I could have here with the right victim. I always do my kills quietly and cleanly.
I wonder how it would feel to kill like Finn? To have blood really on my hands.
My fingers hover over the choices, and I feel his eyes on me, tracking every move.
“You’re hesitating,” he says. I hear the undertone; he’s daring me to prove him wrong.
I pick up a scalpel; I don’t want to leave more scars. But maybe he needs new ones to remind him of something better when he looks at them.
When I face him again, his head tilts ever so slightly, like he’s curious to see which part of him I’ll touch first.
I move in close, the chair creaking under the shift of his weight as I straddle his thighs. My free hand grips his jaw, holding his gaze steady.
“I could make you bleed,” I murmur. “But you already bleed for me in ways you don’t realize.”
The scalpel’s edge kisses the side of his throat, just enough to let him feel how precise my hand is. His pulse flutters beneath the blade, but he doesn’t flinch.
“Do it,” he says.
I shake my head, dragging the cold steel across his chest instead until it rests over his heart.
“This isn’t about hurting you, Finn,” I say softly. “It’s about making you understand you don’t have to hide from me.”
His breath deepens, but he stays silent.
So I press the blade down just enough to break the skin. A thin red line blooms against his tattooed chest. His muscles flex beneath me, his eyes locked on mine.
“What made you want to become a surgeon?” I ask.
His jaw works, but nothing comes out.
I lean in, my lips brushing his ear. “Do you think anything you tell me at this point will change how I feel about you? It won’t.”
I set the scalpel aside, my hands gripping the arms of the chair as I kiss him hard, taking his mouth like I’m claiming it. His wrists strain against the restraints, his body pushing into mine.
When I pull back, his breathing is ragged.
“This is your trial, Dr. Quinn,” I whisper. “And I’m not stopping until you let me in.”
With a wicked smile, I lean down and lick up the blood dripping down his chest.
I could hurt him by not allowing him access to me.
It doesn’t need to just be physical wounds. What we have is more than that.
Sliding one hand behind me, I cup his growing dick in my hand, and I squeeze.
“What made you want to become a surgeon?” I press.
“My first kill,” he says bluntly.
Okay. I have an answer. That makes me smile.
“Who was it?” I ask.
He swallows as I remove my hand from his dick and instead, grip his throat.
“My best friend's parents. I was ten.”
My eyes go wide. Ten years old. Murdering? I knew the mafia was bad; it’s engrained into their kids from a young age. But that seems absurd.
“Why did you kill them, Finn?”
His face pales. His body jerking beneath me. I quickly make another cut on the other side of his chest, and he grits his teeth.
But it calms him down. The pain distracts from the carnage inside his brain.
Fuck, this is breaking my heart watching him.