Page 6 of A Heart So Savage

He spanked her hard three more times. Ava panted, fighting to be still rather than wiggling away from his hand. Tears trickled down her cheeks, marring the table’s fabric with dark splotches.

“Do you understand, lamb?” Kingston ran a palm over her ass, well aware of how much it stung. “Don’t roam this house or anywhere alone. Ever. It isn’t safe.”

“Maybe… maybe you should employ better men worthy of your trust,” she whispered defiantly in a voice broken with gulps for air. “If I’m not safe here, of all places, in this dark castle where you rule…”

“Watch your mouth.” Kingston gritted his teeth and spanked Ava again. This time she did squirm about, unsuccessfully attempting to escape his heavy hand. “Let me clarify things for you in simpler terms. You are not safe unless I am with you. And even that is debatable.”

Ava’s legs trembled, closing on their own accord when his hand drifted lower. It swept her body in a fleeting caress before slipping between her legs. Pushing hard while rotating his palm against her clit, Kingston soothed both the pain he inflicted and ratcheted up her desire.

Ava moaned, melting into his touch, legs buckling beneath the onslaught of Kingston’s talented fingers as they traced and molded every fold and curve of her sex through the jeans.

And Kingston prayed for the strength to keep himself from ripping the denim off her body and claiming what was his.

“Stand up.”

When Ava did not immediately obey the harsh command, Kingston used the grip on her wrists to haul her upright. Keeping her wrists anchored in the small of her back, he spun her so quickly that she careened into him with a tiny yelp of surprise.

Their faces were now mere inches apart. Kingston’s free hand came up, lightly encircling Ava’s throat but stopping short of tightening. She whimpered, staring up at him in dazed awareness with dark green eyes, the pupils blown wide with confused arousal.

Kingston breathed deep, inhaling her soft perfume. Her sweet breath brushed his lips, and the tears rolling down her flawless cheeks called out to the most sadistic part of his soul. The part he usually kept tamped down. The part he fought against daily and struggled to keep contained when he was near her.

Goddamn, how he wanted to unravel her. Ruin her. Save her. Keep her.

It was madness, of course. This bewildering, possessive desire. This raging need to own Ava’s body. Her heart.

Without warning, Kingston’s mouth crashed down on hers, and he groaned with the perfection of their kiss. It was brutal and yet, it was a culmination of every emotion experienced since the day he met her while standing in her mother’s perfect, suburban kitchen.

Lust. Possession. Anger. Fear. Wonder. Helplessness.

Ava kissed him back, surrender vibrating low in her throat. Their mouths ravaged together. Explored each other. Discovered shared desire. Incinerated obstacles and sanity.

Somehow, their souls entwined through that kiss. Swirling branches of thorny vines and blood-soaked honeysuckles twisted and tangled until there was no beginning and no end, and Kingston realized a sad truth.

He would break his word. Shatter his reputation as a man who delivered on both promises and deadly threats.

Thank God Ava’s father was no longer alive to see the depths into which Kingston had sunk. His disappointment would have stung like an open wound.

I won’t let her go once the debt is paid. Ava is mine.

Kingston tore his mouth from hers.

“Fuck. I could kiss you for a thousand years and it wouldn’t be long enough.”

Ava’s eyes were volcanoes of desire. Bubbling, molten rivers that Kingston was drowning in. Hell, he was happy to drown. To never come up for air. To never escape.

And all that just from a simple kiss of ownership.

“Where do you go at night?” Ava countered softly, testing the strength of the hands encircling her wrists. A million questions shimmered in her eyes, a frown creasing her brow at the tightness of his grip.

A tingle of shame rippled through Kingston. He had held her prisoner like this for so long that her hands were likely numb. Abruptly releasing her, he watched as she carefully rubbed each wrist as though encouraging the nerve endings to work again.

“I’m a very busy man,” was his cryptic response.

He would not tell Ava how they disposed of Malcolm’s body. Nor that he and Oliver fought over the absolute necessity of the man’s death. There’d also been the issue of Carson’s debt and the paperwork absolving him for the payback. The final bit of business was the placement of Ava Blue in her brother’s place as the payor of the debt.

Oliver had shaken his head in bewilderment as Kingston notified the security teams of his latest acquisition.

“You are forfeiting two point six million for a bit of pussy?” Oliver asked in his customary, sardonic way.

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