Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
I split in two.
Battling right and wrong.
The more I struggled to get away, the more my body burned.
“Don’t.” I felt as if I’d break apart—shatter into the cosmos and become stardust. “Henri, stop!”
The refusal, the fight—it twisted and tangled, tempting the madness inside me and his lonely monster.
“Christ, yes.” His snarl as he jack-knifed into me made my hair stand on end. “God, I love feeling you struggle.”
I fought harder.
Grew wetter.
Climbed up that high, high mountain of bliss.
This was no longer about physical survival.
It’s spiritual.
“Henri…”
“Ily.” He kissed me again, gagging me and destroying me in one brilliant move.
He licked me.
Oh God—
Everything turned into a supernova.
A nebula of light.
A blackhole of endings.
I lost.
I came.
I came excruciatingly hard.
I screamed.
I became a different person.
Nothing more than flesh and feeling as I impaled myself on him and gave him everything.
He grunted as if I’d ripped out his heart and crushed it in my bare hands.
He thickened inside me.
His rampaging hips almost shunted me through the wall.
“Goddammit,” he roared.
The crown of his cock pounded against my G-spot.
I didn’t stand a chance.
My second orgasm didn’t just detonate in my core but in my very spirit.
“Stop. Oh God. Oh God. Stop. Please stop.”
He was killing me.
Suffocating me by pleasure.
On and on.
My body fisted him.
Rippling.
Milking.
“Fuck!” The jerks as he came.
The shudders as he spilled inside.
Spurting deep, deep within—coating me, marking me, making me his.
A full body quake as he fed me his final drop.
Panting hard, he slammed his forehead against the wall by my ear as he struggled to breathe.
And that was where horror found me.
What we’d done.
How I’d felt.
What he’d called me.
And the awful truth about everything.
I felt as if I’d leap out of my skin.
My heart was a traitor.
My body my biggest enemy.
I need to run…
“Henri...” My voice caught on tears. Tears I would never shed in his company. Tears that threatened to river. “Let me go. Please…please let me go.”
Slowly, he reared back.
His lust-glazed eyes met mine.
He went to kiss me with awe and affection, but…whatever he saw made him trip backward, disengage, and shove me far, far away from him.
Chapter Sixteen
………………………….
Henri
JESUS CHRIST, WHAT DID I JUST DO?
What the fuck did I do?
She stood there.
Wide-eyed, white-shocked, my cum oozing down her inner thigh.
She told me to stop.
Putain, how long had she been begging me to stop?
How had I not heard her?
How had I lost myself so completely?
I tripped back another step.
Echoes of my orgasm butchered me. Memories of her body fisting my cock mocked me.
I-I kissed her.
Fucking hell, why did I kiss her?
I’d ruined everything.
Every goddamn thing I’d turned my back on.
Every monstrous thing I’d become.
My past and present tangled and tore, leaving me in a wasteland of feelings and guilt.
Such motherfucking guilt.
My lips stung from her taste. My tongue burned from her blood.
The moment I’d taken her mouth, I’d broken.
I’d forgotten all her promises to hate me.
I’d shredded all the despair between us.
I’d seen a fresh start.
Hope.
Whatever intelligence inside me that spoke words and walked on two feet died beneath the prehistoric awakening where only two emotions existed.
Love and longing.
I’d fallen into the pit of both.
I’d shattered my legs on impact; cracked open my soul upon descent.
I’d felt more from a single kiss than I had in my entire godforsaken life, and instead of feeling the same tidal wave of connection, Ily looked at me as if I’d destroyed her.
Not her choice.
I forced her.
“Are you so corrupted by this place to believe I sleep with you by choice?” Her cutting question in the shower slapped me around the head. “I’m not your wife, Henri. I will never be any more than what you turned me into.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“The moment I saw you in Paris, I felt something. But then you gave me to Victor, and all those maybes died.”
I crippled beneath loss.
And fear.
Such motherfucking fear.
I wanted to turn back the clock and never steal her.
I wanted to wind it back until I was never born.
“You were born alone. You will die alone. And while you keep me against my will, you will stay alone.”
Fuck.
I bordered hyperventilation.
The fear became too much.
The fear of losing her to another. Of losing her to Victor and death and this place.
But really…I couldn’t lose something I’d never had.
I couldn’t miss something she’d never given me.
Couldn’t hoard something I’d never earned.
Sucking on air, I did my best to claw my pieces back into place.
I needed that darkness. Craved to return to that black abyss.
I couldn’t cope like this.
Feeling like this.
So what if I’d drowned in ravenous devotion while she’d begged me to stop?
So what if I didn’t stop?
So what if I used her?
I’d told her I would.
She was my slave.
She said it herself that was all she’d ever be.
I did nothing wrong!
So why did everything feel so fucked up?
That kiss.
That goddamn kiss ruined everything.
Ah, Christ…
Raking both hands through my hair, I choked with a gush of nausea.