Page 82 of Twisted Cage

As I frantically search over her skin, her face softens from furious indignation to quiet understanding. It slices through me, leaving me raw and bleeding because she looks so damn much like she did when she looked up to me, adored me, and loved me. Like when she chose me—out of everyone—she chose me.

I thought I’d felt the worst of the pain from that loss, but I was wrong. So very wrong. Seeing this side of her again—it resurrects possibilities. Possibilities she almost snuffed out with her recklessness.

A new wave of terror sears my gut and I’m suddenly so fucking livid again, I take a step back and clench my fists to keep my hands off her. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Bringing a knife to a gunfight?”

The soft smile slips from her lips and her face slides right back into the fierce little killer I know her to be now. Only she’s inexperienced and impulsive and is likely to get dead before she ever reaches her full potential.

She looks me up and down, one eyebrow shooting up. “Oh, and you’re bulletproof?”

“Actually, yes, you little shit.”

Her eyes narrow to slits with the words ‘you little shit’ and now it’s all I want to call her.

I rip open the top half of my shirt, revealing the Kevlar vest beneath. “All the vital organs are protected.”

She aims her knife at the zipper of my pants. “So this organ is expendable then… good to know. Her arm snakes out in a flash. When she draws her hand back, moonlight glints on steel, illuminating my blood streaking the blade.

I wrench open my pants and peel them partway down my hips, staring unblinking at the line she sliced into my skin now welling with blood.

The sting throbs to life, a sharp bite in the skin between my thigh and groin.

Our eyes lock as everything around us goes utterly still. Betrayal hovers on the fringes of love and hunger between us.

Euphoria is our reward, but only after we pay for it in pain and blood.

Before she can even blink, I’m on her. My arms loop around her legs and drag them around my waist.

Scrambling for balance, she clutches the cross tight, but never lets go of the knife.

I go still and take her in, imagining a rendering of her like this on canvas. Her defiant smirk under her intense, unblinking gaze. My snarling, vicious little sacrifice suspended there.

I’d hang her fury in the foyer as a warning to anyone who graces our door.

“You’re all doe-eyed adoration one minute and vengeance the next.” I graze her proud little chin with my knuckles. “Which of you will destroy me, Pcholka?”

“Vengeance.” The word is a growl of warning delivered by her sharp tongue as I tip her up higher. Because of her obscenely high slit, her dress falls around her waist, baring her to me.

A blessing and a curse.

As is always the way with her.

“I hate this dress.” The very first touch of my fingers brushing over her clit leaves the breath whooshing from her lungs. Her eyes turn glassy as I begin to tame her in the smallest of increments.

“I hate you.” She spits the words at me like a snarling little viper. With a regal tip to her chin, she bucks in my hands, her legs hooking around me and pulling me in.

Her arousal slickens the pad of my thumb. I continue stroking in lazy swipes over her clit. First along the left, then over the top, taking in every single reaction. Looking for the place that will plummet her over the edge. When I brush along the tight little bud on the right, she bucks in my hands, her eyes rolling back and eyelids sliding shut.

Ahhhh, there’s the spot.

Now I’ve got you.

Her hair tumbles around her face in wild waves. She’s pale. The blood hasn’t completely returned to the skin’s surface, except the angry flush of scarlet in her cheeks.

I can work with that.

“The only part of you that hates me is your vicious tongue, but I bet the minute I slide my cock in your mouth and fuck your throat, she’ll fall for me too.”

Fire burns in her glare, but her hips buck, silently begging me to take her even as she condemns me for it.

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