Page 108 of Brutal Game

I stood up on wobbly legs and went into my bedroom, collapsing facedown on my bed, covering my head with a pillow so I didn’t have to listen to him banging and yelling.

A smashing sound, the squeak of hinges. I jumped.

Huh.

He’d broken down the door after all.

He stomped across the floor to my bedroom, and then I was being dragged up and off the bed, turned to face the mirror. One of his arms wrapped around my waist in a vice, the other locked around my throat.

“Look at us,” he commanded. “Look. At. Us.”

I looked. He was soaked through, like I had been, dark hair matted with rain, raindrops dripping off his long dark lashes, turning his gray eyes silver in the dark. His mouth was at my ear, his wet suit soaking through my towel, pressing against my bare legs.

“Do you see? Tell me you see.” The order sounded as desperate as he’d sounded earlier. No, more desperate.

“I see my stalker broke into my apartment again and is restraining me against my will,” I taunted, but it was half-assed. I was too drained to spar with him.

“No, I mean, do you seeus.See how well we fit together.How right we look together. How much we aremeantfor each other.”

Oh.

I looked, really looked. His dark features and mine. His big, hard body, my smaller, softer one. My scar edging up toward his arm. And he must have been tracking my eyes, because he released his arm around my throat only to stroke the scar. “You see, don’t you,” he murmured. “I’m not letting you go, little fury. I don’t care how much I hurt you in the past, I don’t care if it hurts in the future. I. Am. Not. Letting. You. Go. Do you hear me?”

“All I hear is you claiming me as yours, without giving any of yourself back,” I said, suddenly so, so tired.

He shook his head. “No, baby. No. I’m yours as much as you’re mine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called you manipulative. I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry I never gave you a choice, I’m sorry I made you feel like all you were good for was sex. You’re so much more than that to me, little fury. You’reeverything. Let me show you.”

He’d never said sorry to me before—not once. It hurt more than if he’d never apologized at all. I shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at us anymore. I’d surrender again, and where would that leave me? I’d become someone else, not loyal, not strong, not…anything, but Jack’s, until he decided he was done with me, too.

“Look at me, baby,” he said, and then he had turned my head in his hand and he was dropping soft kisses on my lips, my cheek, my eyes. “Look at me,” he murmured again. “Please.”

It was the please that did it. My eyes opened. His own looked crazed. Pained.

“Please let me show you,” he said.

I nodded, and even though I knew it was the last time, I wanted it, needed it. Needed him.

And then his arms were dropping and my towel was dropping and his suit pants were unzipping and he was tracing circles around my clit. I was wet, and not just from the shower, as if my body had known what my mind hadn’t. Knew Jack was on his way here and had prepared for him.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured. “Wet for me already, because your body knows how right we are for each other. I was made for you, little fury. Made to keep you safe. Made to keep you happy. And you were made to keep me whole. Spread your legs.”

I did, and then he was inside me, his arm once again wrapped around my waist to keep me upright as he thrust into me, slow and deep.

“Kiss me,” he ordered, and I twisted my head in time for him to capture my mouth with his and swallow my protests, as if there had been any.

This was it. It had to be the last time, he knew as well as I did. And I was going to inhale every second of it. I’d be greedy for as long as I could, because the memories would have to stay with me once he was gone.

He groaned as he kissed me, as he pushed inside me slowly, like he was trying to soak up the moment as much as I was. I felt each ridge of his cock, his hard heat parting my folds and making a home for himself there like he had in my heart, as if he were promising to stay.

But I knew better. He wasn’t. He couldn’t. We were at cross purposes. Getting what I wanted—justice for my brother, and by this point, for myself—meant destroying every single one of Jack’s dreams.

He’s not the manipulative one.

Starcrossed. And it never ended well for starcrossed lovers.

“At least get a condom,” I gasped as he hit a spot inside me I was starting to think of as his.

“No,” he growled as he slid back out, still torturously slow. “Fucking you bare. Taking you raw. Nothing getting between us.Ever.”

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