Page 124 of What You left in Me

“You already did.” I step into her. “Do it again.”

Her breath saws. She hates how fast her body betrays her; she hates that I feel it. She fists my shirt, drags me down, and kisses me like penance. There’s nothing sweet in it. It is grief honed into lust because it’s the only blade that cuts accurately.

“I hate you,” she says against my mouth.

“Good,” I say into hers. There’s nothing I want more than her right now. I want her body to make me forget of the agony I’ve felt these last few days. “Hate me more.”

She snarls, actually snarls, and I smile like a fucking devil because I have wanted this honest fury since the day I understood what she could do to me.

I back her into the desk. Papers slide. A pen hits the floor and rolls, a small, stupid sound that makes her flinch like guilt.

“Look at me,” I say, because I won’t have her somewhere else while she ruins me. “Eyes on me.”

She obeys.

“Say it again,” I demand.

“I hate you,” she grits, but there’s a break in the middle of the word hate that sounds a lot like want.

I twist the anklet with two fingers, gentle, possessive. “You want this off?”

“Yes.” It’s too fast. Too loud.

“Liar,” I say, calm. “You want to hear me tell you you’re not going anywhere.”

“Fuck you.” But she doesn’t pull her leg away. She lifts it, sets her foot on the edge of the drawer, bares the metal to me like a dare and a prayer.

I take the small key from the drawer, hold it up. The lamplight glints off the teeth. Her eyes track it like a cat. I lower the key until it kisses the lock. Don’t turn it. Press just enough to make the metal click without release. Her breath stutters.

“Please,” she whispers, and it’s not a word she uses lightly.

“For what?” I murmur.

“For mercy.”

I smile. “Not tonight.”

She shivers. “I hate you.”

“Good,” I say again, because we’re done pretending love is picture-perfect. “Hate me and ask me to make you forget of everything. Just like I want to, Ariane.”

That gets her attention.

“Make me…” she says. “Make me forget.”

I pocket the key.

Her lip curls. She pushes me again because she needs the fight to justify the surrender. I take her wrists and bring them upto the desk edge. I don’t tie them; I just hold until I feel the fight concentrate into focus. Consent isn’t a contract we sign once and it’s a dial I keep tuned with my own hands.

“Tell me to stop,” I say, because I’m not a fucking monster, whatever else I am.

She swallows, and the sound is obscene in the quiet of the room. “Don’t stop. Even if I beg you.”

My hands move on instinct, unbuttoning her jeans, shoving them down just enough to slip my hand inside. Her silky underwear is no barrier as I sink my middle finger into her heat. She gasps, her body jerking, fists pounding my chest, but I’m a goddamn wall, unmoved, unyielding.

“This isn’t going to be another meaningless fuck,” I growl, my voice rough with need. “I’m not. I’m in your blood, Ariane, just like you’re in mine. Those other men? Julian? He had no staying power, because he’ll never be me. I will fucking destroy everything that comes between us. ”

She rises on her toes as I slide another finger inside, pressing hard against that spot that makes her unravel. She shrieks, shoving at me, but I lean in closer, crowding her, rendering her struggles useless. Her sweet scent hits me like a drug, pulling me back to summers, to innocence, before I drowned it all in this reckless hunger.