Page 24 of The Broken Wolf's Redemption

“Put your fingers in your mouth, darling. Tell me how you taste.”

“How about I put them in your mouth? How about I break your stupid rules? Would you like to be violated that way? Would you like me to cause you pain and be thoughtless and wound you like that? Would you like me to be mean like you?”

“I said I wouldn’t touch you. I never said you couldn’t touch me.”

He had more than a small thing against it. He couldn’t touch her because then she would be real. She’d wreck him if she ever got close enough, and he’d fully intended to hold her at arms’ length. The contract was always more about picking her apart, breaking her, punishing her for being something to him so he could purge her in the end and move on. She affected his body, and for almost two years he’d tried to figure out why and how. What power did she have over him? Why her and no one else? Why her at all, when there should have been no one?

He was losing control and he was losing himself, and that simply wasn’t acceptable. He was the hunter. He’d have her and he’d figure it out. He’d figure her out, break her, and that would allow him to go back to feeling nothing at all, and then he’d forget her.

It was not supposed to feel like this. Not like he’d been out of his body for decades and he’d been slammed back into it so abruptly that the living was excruciatingly agonizing.

“Is that right?” she challenged. She might have started this as a way to one up him, but it had quickly spiraled out of her control. Maybe the whole thing was spiraling. “I’ll think about how I want to touch you exactly when I’m running with your pack tonight and you’re here. Maybe you should be ruminating on your life choices because I think that’s a pretty shitty—”

He wasn’t supposed to move, but he wasn’t going to take that lying flat on his back. He rolled over in an instant even though the pain in his leg was so great he nearly blacked out when the wave of agony shredded his muscles, rolled through his stomach, and exploded in his brain. His body became an inferno, the eternal damnation he deserved reaching him early.

Seren gasped when he pinned her to the bed. His shoulder gave him warning twinges to let him know it wasn’t going to bear his weight, but he was able to grasp her hands by balancing most of his weight on his knees and force them above her head in a single motion far smoother than she clearly thought he could. She bucked in protest when he moved them above her head, pinning them with his good hand. He bore all his weight on that arm and his good knee, relieving the parts of him that were held together with bandages, herbs, and Brooke’s skill.

He’d judged the distance correctly, trusting in senses that weren’t just human. He was close enough to caress the shell of her ear with his breath. She was splayed out beneath him, utterly still and submissive except for the heaving of her breath which she couldn’t seem to get under control. Agony punched through him, but it was worth it. Even if Brooke had to fix him all over again in the morning, break his bones again to set them straight, it would be worth it.

“I was banished because I killed those wolves. You know that, but what you don’t know is why. They took something from me.” He’d vowed he’d never speak of it again, but here he was, pretending he was in full control when he was spiraling right the fuck out.

She’d changed the game. Stretched the parameters. He found himself responding, against his will.

“I’d do it again and again and again. My only regret is that I didn’t make them suffer longer.” He didn’t touch her, but he let his hot breath drench her cheek. She tried to melt into the bed, flexing her spine into the mattress to put distance between their bodies, but they were still connected. He had his knees around her, her wrists with her thrashing pulse locked in his hands.

“You’re a monster,” she seethed. Her anger was delicious. He drank it in. Even her rage had a sweet scent. She was like a tropical escape. He never could have appreciated the full beauty of her until he was there.

He ignored the accusation. They both already knew it was the truth. “I tore them apart. Ripped out one’s intestines with my teeth. I blinded another before I tore out his throat so brutally that his head nearly detached from his body.”

She didn’t gag, but she did stop breathing.

“I wished I would have torn out the beating hearts of every single one of them. Feasted on them. Made their souls mine for eternity.” It was a dark memory, but a darker promise.

This wolf trapped beneath him, so beautiful and potent, yet so innocent and mild and good? She deserved the best things from life. From the world. It had given her shitty hands, over and over, and she’d made the most of them. He’d dealt her a killing blow, but she was here, still alive, facing down with him. He was almost sorry that he’d manipulated her into this. She deserved far better than him, but there they were anyway.

She was supposed to be nothing but a memory after he purged her from his system, but his words seared them both. He’d do the same to anyone who harmed her. Apparently, himself not included.

“That’s why I was banished. Think about that and all your life choices while you’re lying next to me for the rest of the night and while you’re under my thumb for the next five and a half months. Think about all the life choices that brought you here.”

Seren hadn’t started the war, but she was game to finish it. She’d found her backbone and her fight somewhere along the way. He liked the feisty bared teeth, gleaming in the dark. Liked that her scent changed. What he did not like was how his body responded, utterly beyond his control. He had no shield against this woman, no walls. He’d put himself into the most dangerous position possible with the idea of using her as a means to an end and getting rid of her when he’d had his fill.

Was the even possible? She was like salt water. The more you drank, the thirstier you became.

He prepared himself for a brutal response, but not for the lightning swift strike. He had her wrists pinned, but he didn’t have her hips or her knees. She reared up, kneeing him right in the balls. It was hard enough to hurt, but not seriously. Just a warning shot. Even when she was pissed beyond reason, Seren was still good. Still kind. Still believed in mercy and justice.

He gave her his own warning shot back, pressing down harder on her wrists, tightening his fingers until he knew they’d leave marks on her skin. It wasn’t enough. He had to get away from her. She was too much too soon. He kept thinking about all the marks he’d like to leave all over her. Strap welts on the peach ripe curve of her ass. Fingerprints around her throat, whip marks on her back and thighs. And his cum, painting her from head to toe. He hadn’t seen nearly all of her ink, but he thought about his name there, and not unwillingly. Thought about her picking a private spot of her delicate porcelain skin and hammering that stark black ink in, marking her as his forever.

“Careful,” he warned her, balls aching, but it was a pain barely felt above the level ten beast that was his leg and shoulder. He lowered his mouth to her throat. He intended to scare her, but she was intoxicating. He was already breaking his rule about touch, but he broke another and slipped the tip of his tongue out, finding her skin.

He could have died, except that he was sure there was only the here and now and nothing waiting for him but darkness and rot. She froze as his tongue travelled up the tempting column of her throat. Her skin was ambrosia, the sweetest and most divine nectar of all the gods. If she tasted so wonderful at just the juncture of her throat, what would her pussy taste like, ripe and ready, glistening for him? How much more delicious would it be to carve her apart with his tongue until she was screaming his name?

All along he knew that if he ever tasted her or touched her, he’d never get enough. He knew like a man sensing his own doom and walking straight for it. He knew he’d want her forever, and that wasn’t part of the bargain. It wasn’t part of sanity. Not for her and certainly not for himself. This was about letting her go, not getting more invested.

He released her wrists, needing to separate their bodies. He might be damned, but the flames couldn’t take him yet.

She should have let him go, and gratefully, but she stunned him with her fingers plowed into his hair, wrapping and pulling so hard that his head jerked back. All the tight, abraded skin on his back felt her grasp like a blow. She wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled him in.

Their mouths met in a furious tangle. Her kiss wasn’t about passion. It was about aggression. He’d pressed hard on her fight response, and she was giving him what he wanted. She was like a wild animal beneath him, but even though her kiss said she hated him and wished he was dead, her body had other ideas. He felt her hips jerk up, seeking his hardness.

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