Page 138 of Breaker

“Are you okay?”

She’s comforting me.The thought sends a weird pang to my chest. The idea she’s trying to calm me, thinking I need comfort is a testament to her beautiful heart and to how much we’ve managed to manipulate her emotions.

That has to be it. She may trust us, may believe we have Cora’s and her best interest in mind, but can she really have feelings that are true? Her own? Fucking her, claiming her body, her mind, training her for our mission, is so vastly different from owning her heart.

Yet, I think we do.

“What’s wrong,” she whispers.

“Bad dream,” I lie, pulling her to my chest as I lay us back down. “Just a bad dream.”

“I have them too,” she says, lips brushing my bare chest. “About my mother.”

That pang returns but it’s harsher, more painful. More like a stabbing.

“It was my birthday,” she says. “Rune wasn’t even there. He didn’t see it happen.”

My stomach revolts. My eyes move to the crown molding.

“I hated him for a long time.” The confession leaves her with a rush of air, like this is the first time she’s said the words out loud, or even allowed herself the freedom to think it, feel it. “That he wasn’t even there, and it was more than likely his fault she was killed. It should have been him.”

I say nothing, letting her talk even though it feels like my heart’s being cut open with every word.

“As I got older, I told myself it was part of this life. This is what every family like ours deals with. Rivals. Death. Revenge.”

Another slice.

“It’s a constant scramble to maintain power and make more money, take more control,” she says. “But I didn’t get to choose my family. I was born into a world of power hungry menwho kill and steal and commit atrocities every day. And that’s what made me even more angry. I didn’t have a choice, so I was forced to adapt.”

And then we came in and give her no choice. We snatched her away and destroyed her entire life. Now we’re asking her to follow us blindly into a war. And she is. And maybe it’s for Cora, the hope we’ve planted to get Cora back and away from Zane, but she’s still following us. She’s still in this bed with me, stroking my chest, familiar with my body now.

Familiar with me.

Like we already own parts of her heart.

The thought of what we’d have done to her if she’d not followed us, if she had refused us and the mission, makes me sick. What would we have done? If she’d refused?

There’s a part of me that tink’s we’d have tried, yet we failed that first day in every way. Instead of have breaking her down, bit my bit until she was so fucking ruined she’d do anything for us, exactly as Fallon intended, exactly as he wanted, we found another way and it worked.

“And now,” she pauses, looking at up me, her warm breath on my jaw. “Now I hate him all over again. Hate him so much, I want him dead.”

My heart punches against my ribs.

“What was your dream about?” she asks, changing topics so abruptly my head spins.

“The day I almost died for the second time,” I tell her.And the third, but I don’t say that. Instead, I move over her, laying her back down beneath me as I pull her thigh up, hooking it over my hip. She gasps when my cock hits her and I moan when I find her already wet and ready.

“Are you sore?” I whisper. I’ve taken her so many times today, so greedy in my lust to have all of her that she must ache.

A slow smile spreads across her perfect lips, and I swear I think my chest both exploded and calmly fluttered from the sweet, slightly naughty expression.

“Yes,” she whispers back, “but it’s a good sore. I want you again.”

Reaching between us, she notches my dick at her entrance, and I drive in hard and fast. Her back arches, breath escaping her lungs with a groan.

“Striker,” she whispers.

“Princess.” I drive in harder. Her palm shooting up to brace the headboard.