Page 116 of Kingmakers, Year One

If I want this to stop, I have to tell him right now.

“Dean—” I start, but he clamps his hand down over my mouth.

“Don’t,” he growls.

He shoves his other hand down the front of my underwear and starts rubbing me again, trying to force me to reach his level of arousal, trying to lure me into doing what he wants me to do through sheer physical coercion.

It feels good. Whether I want it to or not, it does.

But it doesn’t make me happy. Instead it fills me with a kind of sick, sinking panic. I feel trapped and desperate. I know what Dean’s trying to do. He wants me. He thinks if he takes my body, he’ll own my heart and soul, too.

But they already belong to someone else. I’ve tried to ignore it, tried to deny it, tried to kill it even. It doesn’t work. It will never work.

I grew up with Leo. He shaped me every day of my life. I never learned how to love anyone but him.

I wrench Dean’s hand away from my mouth.

“I can’t do this, Dean,” I cry. “I still love him. I tried to make it go away, I swear I tried every day. But it won’t. I can’t stop.”

He looks down into my face, and I see his jaw working, his upper lip twitching. A Möbius strip of emotions whirls across his face.

I expect him to rage at me. Or kiss me again.

I could never have guessed what he does next.

He rolls me over on top of him so I’m straddling him. Then he blows out the last candle, plunging us into darkness. All I can hear is the low, insistent beat of the music, and my own thundering heart.

Dean says, “Pretend I’m him.”

“W-what?”

“Pretend I’m him,” he repeats, his voice low and insistent. “I want you, Anna. I need you. If you can’t forget him, then don’t forget him. Picture him while you fuck me. Pretend it’s him you’re riding. Call out his name while you come all over my cock. I don’t give a fuck, as long as I have you.”

It’s insane.

And yet . . . I’m tempted.

I’ve had this longing inside of me for so long. I can’t kill it, and I can’t do anything about it.

If I do what Dean asks . . . at least I’ll have a moment of relief.

Who knows. Maybe it’s what I need to exorcise this fixation once and for all . . .

I lean forward to kiss Dean, my bare breasts pressing against his warm, hard chest.

Before our mouths can meet, I smell the clean scent of his skin. It’s fresh and pleasant. But it isn’t Leo.

I jump off of him as if I’ve been electrocuted.

I run for the door, not even stopping to try to find my clothes in the dark.

“Wait!” Dean calls after me.

I don’t wait, not for a second.

22

LEO

---