Page 34 of Stockholm (Angel of Mercy #1)

The Kept

T he idea takes root inside me, and I play it out to fruition in my head. Trying on how it would feel, seeing how it would look for me to misbehave just a tiny, little bit. Besides, I need a moment to work up the courage to step so dangerously outside my comfort zone.

I want to . I want to push back against someone who pushes me so aggressively. A little bit of me wants to fight how restrained I am after a lifetime of being led around and locked away.

Being a lady—being proper and modest as my mother conditioned me—has only gotten me locked into a marriage with a man who apparently is a monster . I’ve wasted my life being so virtuous, trying to be deserving of my husband, and for what? The appeal of it has started to fade away.

Noah doesn’t think I have any fight in me, clearly. I’m sure he thinks I’ll just sulk in my bed until he deigns to come crawling back into it.

No. I can’t stand the feeling of being treated like glass right now, when all I want is to be gripped by his hands.

I need that physical reminder that I’m real, to stop me from feeling like I’m untethered from reality.

I need someone to hold onto me and make me feel something other than this awful rootless nothing .

Like I don’t exist anywhere. I don’t matter anywhere.

Eric, buying me that house in the middle of nowhere, treating me like a breakable collectible that's kept put away, it’s just like the box I’m locked in here.

I hate it .

Tears fall, but not from sadness. Frustration chokes out any other emotion, all from the ache to feel wanted. Valued as a woman instead of as a Saint.

Wiping my tears with the back of my hand, I turn for the bathroom, pushing the door open and scanning the ceiling. I stretch into the shower and twist the knob, setting a high enough temp so that the room will fill with steam.

I’m going to do this .

My heart is pounding, thinking of what I’m hoping will happen. My hands shake as I unbutton my shorts, pushing them down and kicking them off my legs. I breathe out heavily, trying to calm myself before pulling my shirt over my head. My underwear falls to the floor as the room clouds around me.

You can do this, I convince myself, rolling back my shoulders and stepping into the glass shower. The hot water is instantly soothing, breaking against my skin and turning it a flushed pink color. For a few minutes I let myself relax into it, the water massaging my back, soaking my hair.

I’m taking a gamble that there’s in fact a camera angled toward the shower, but the number of times my meals showed up while I was washing my hair leads me to believe there most definitely is.

Hot water rolls down my back and over my shoulders, and I sink into it. The slickness of my skin reminds me of a week ago, when I’d stared up at Noah as he brought me to the edge, skin damp, heated.

I close my eyes, replaying the scene for the hundredth time. Reliving how it felt to have someone look at me like they wanted to tear me to pieces. Like I was the most desirable thing he’d ever seen. Not beautiful, or sweet, but tempting.

That burn lights up again in the bottom of my stomach, becoming more and more familiar to me as the days pass. How terrible that I’d wasted years not seeking this feeling, nurturing it. Making myself experience it if my husband did not.

Noah would, though, if I could just bring him back in here.

Ignoring the hammering in my chest, I bring my shaking hands to my hair, smoothing it down, letting them trail slowly down to my neck, where I pause for just a moment. Sliding them across my shoulders, along my collarbone, then dropping one to my breast.

I’ve touched myself many times before, but never made a habit of it. Not out of any moral dilemma, but because the skill of making myself orgasm simply wasn’t there. It just never made sense to explore when the payoff was a weak body high. Nothing life-changing like the books I read.

Right now, however, it’s what every cell in my body is yearning for.

I want to touch and learn and feel . I let my fingers brush across my nipple, and my brow furrows as I repeat it a little harder, a small noise escaping me at the sensation.

I pinch, letting my other hand drift down, over my chest, over my stomach, taking my time to reach below, to let my finger drift across my clit.

My head falls back, a moan sounding in the shower, echoing off the tile.

I try to replicate the way that Noah had done it, how he had touched me in a way that rattled me to my core.

I roll my thumb over my clit while another finger slides along to my entrance as I feel my own wetness.

Of how it feels like electricity inside me, a current coming to life that I want to chase to the ends of the earth.

I bite my lip, dipping a finger inside and imagine he’s here. Here in the room with me, under the water. That it’s his hand rolling my nipple and pinching it. That it’s him taking control of my body, forcing these feelings that have hijacked my brain into needing him.

I need him.

A loud slam makes me jump and my eyes fly open to see the bathroom door swing and crash against the wall. Noah fills the doorway, his eyes dark as he takes me in before stalking over to the glass shower door.

Rather than turned on, he looks angry and I swallow back a surge of fear, ignoring how it somehow makes me wetter.

Eye contact never breaks as he kicks off his boots and yanks his shirt over his head. “Is this on purpose, angel? Hmm? Trying to get back at me for not giving you enough attention?”

I blink, mouth falling open but no words form .

He unbuttons his jeans, pushing them and his boxers down his legs and stepping out of them with his hair a mess and a fierce glint in his eye. “Who are you thinking about right now? Who’s on your fucking mind so that you come in here and have to touch that pretty little pussy of yours?”

Is he…jealous? I can barely process his words because I’m taking in his body which is somehow better than the one in all my dreams of him.

His form has me frozen, my eyes greedily trying to take in every surface under the chaotic wolf tattoo that climbs up his leg and crawls up the side of his body.

Not to mention…my eyes widen, cheeks flaring at how he’s undressing in front of me so suddenly.

It’s—it’s large . I gulp, looking back up at his face in shock. I don’t know what to do with him now that he’s here.

“You fucking brat,” he growls. “Don’t tell me for a second this wasn’t on purpose. You pull this shit to get me in here, so why do you look afraid now?”

I shake my head, backing up until I hit the shower wall, but he advances, stalking through the water, dampening his dark hair until it hangs in his eyes. “I-I was just—” But that’s where it ends, because anything else is a lie. This is what I had wanted.

“You just what,” he says, sliding a large hand from my collarbone up my throat, nestling it tightly under my jaw.

“You couldn’t stop thinking about Jesse and his dirty mouth?

Bo wishing that you could join the two of them?

That fucking prick husband of yours?” He squeezes lightly.

“And remember you do not fucking lie to me .”

I’m still shaking my head—scared, because I’ve never in my life been treated this way, but also desperate in a way I’ve never felt. I crave this from him. The intensity rolling off of him and I’m the cause. I made him wound up like this. “No, I was thinking of you.”

His hand loosens slightly, his eyes falling to my mouth. It’s quiet for a moment, the sounds of our breathing the only thing we share. I know he can feel my pulse wild in my throat.

He absorbs my racing heartbeat, the way I’m frozen like prey, and he dips down to capture my mouth in a searing kiss.

It takes my breath away, the force behind it knocking me back fully against the wall where he presses against me.

His hands tangle into my hair, holding me in place for him to take what he needs and I happily give it, all of it, everything I feel right now.

I’m scared out of my mind, yes, and also more aroused than I’ve ever been. I’m absolutely aching for more of the feeling he gave me the other day.

“You needy girl,” he murmurs against my lips, dropping one hand to run down my body and grip my hip roughly.

“I tried to give you a break. I tried to let you take in everything I told you about Eric so when I took you it didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of such a sweet little thing.

” He bites my lip roughly and I yelp, my hands going to his chest like it will keep him under control.

He brushes them aside immediately, pressing further against me.

“But you want that don’t you? You want me to ruin you? ”

I shiver against him and he smiles. It’s beautiful and I can’t look away. “As you wish. On your knees, Emma.”