Page 95 of The Ripper

Arella didn’t wait for a second invitation and pounced on me. She kicked and punched, using moves I never thought her capable of, all of them with trained precision.

It was odd, because in the years I stalked her, I never saw her take a self-defense class or even go to gym. This was simply her body remembering what it was trained to do, sort of like riding a bike. Her moves came from muscle memory, so much so that she didn’t even have to think about it.

I took them all without moving much, allowing her to pour out all the agony and despair, to unleash all that rancid anger she had shackled.

Only when I felt the fight in her wane, I finally blocked one of her attacks and turned her around, pinning her body against the wall and holding her arms above her head as I pressed my knees to the back of her thighs.

She was panting, but she wasn’t crying anymore.

~ So that’s what we have to do to stop her from crying. Good to know.

“Are you done?” I whispered in her ear.

She nodded.

“Do you still need to clear your head?”

She shook her head, and I pressed myself harder against her for a second before letting go.

“I still can’t tell you, Grimm…” she said as she rubbed her wrists.

“I know,” I sighed. “I’m willing to wait until you’re ready to talk about it.” I took her face in my palms and tilted her head up. “But you have to know that I’ll never judge you, because trust me when I say that whatever it is, I’ve done much worse.”

“What if I’m never ready to talk about it?” she barely whispered.

“Then I’ll wait for forever.”

I wasn’t expecting it, not after all the wrath and tension that had erupted between us tonight, but for the first time…

She was the one who kissed me.

CHAPTER 18

TANGLED IN SIN

GRIMM

I was gone.

Done for.

Undone, and spilling at the seams.

It wasn’t just the fact that I could finally feel her lips again after a whole day of craving the high they offered, but also the fact that she initiated it. And it wasn’t a tentative kiss, or a gentle kiss, or even a hungry kiss.

It was a demolishing kiss, a violent one, meant to break and agonize, and I returned it in the same tumultuous manner as I pressed her back against the wall and slammed my body into hers.

She winced at the impact and in response took my bottom lip between her teeth, biting down on it. I relished this new side of her, the ferocity of her actions and the raw passion of her movements. Blood spurted out the inside of my lip and dripped down our chins, and she didn’t seem to mind the metallic taste mingling with ours as a moan that sounded almost primal escaped her throat.

It vibrated in my mouth, and I inhaled her sounds as if they were air and I was deprived of oxygen.

You want it rough, baby? I can do rough.

I clutched her hips and squeezed her flesh in my palms as her arms slid down my back and tugged at my T-shirt, then stepped back for a moment and allowed her to take it off. Once I was free of it, I grabbed the neckline of her blouse and tore it down her chest.

She gasped as the rip echoed in the room and the fabric now hung in shreds on her shoulders, revealing her cotton bra and all the plumb, pale skin I was about to stain with bites, touches, and orgasms.

Arella looked at me with fervent fascination as she licked her lips, and I quietly waited for the push back, the uncertainty, but it didn’t come as she raked her short fingernails down my chest and abdomen, then our lips collided.

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