Page 38 of Cruel Savior

His hatred towards my father was as palpable as the emotions I’d harbored against him for years as well. I hated that for him as much as I did for myself. Especially since he'd lived with a lie this entire time. “That anger you feel for him is the same as I had for years. Trust me, I get it. It festered until I figured out how to use it. Eventually, it spurred me towards freedom and allowed me to become who I am today. Without it, I’m not sure I would have survived much of what I’ve gone through. But it is poison, Axel. If you don't let it go, it could eventually destroy you."

"Like it destroyed you? If the anger you had created the woman in front of me, what is that supposed to say? You didn't escape. Not really. If you did, you would not have turned against the government and partnered with a mafia douchebag, you wouldn't have been disavowed by them, losing everything in the process, and probably wouldn't have a psycho killer after you right now. So yeah, what thefuckdoes that say?"

I flinched against his cruel words. Just because they were mostly true, didn't make them less hurtful. I should have let them go. But he'd ripped open one too many wounds in the span of a minute, and I was on overload. I reached forward and slapped him across the face. The loud crack of my hand hitting his flesh startled me as much as it did him.

"Fuck you, Axel." I shoved my coffee cup across the island in his direction and turned toward the bedroom to retrieve my meager belongings. Fuck him and the dark steel horse he rode in on. Whatever fleeting thought I'd had about telling him the whole story, evaporated in an instant. I didn't need him for any of this. We weren't light and bright teenagers with our entire futures in front of us anymore, and we'd both seen our fair share of shit in this world, but that gave him no excuse to strike me down at every turn.

But in the back of my head, the little devil that sat on my shoulder laughed because that's exactly what my silence gave him.

"You're not leaving." He grabbed my arm and whirled me around almost before I realized he was there.

"I'll damn well do whatever the hell I want."

He leaned close to my face, and I remained still and unflinching. Although it was hard. Damned hard. I wanted nothing more than to lash out at him—again. I was sick and tired of feeling like shit.

"Normally, I would agree. I'm not fucking trying to control you. But I'm not letting you run around on the loose while a fucking psycho stalks you." He took a breath and clenched his jaw a moment before he continued. "If he gets his hands on you, I will fucking die, but not until I've killed him and every fucking person he is associated with. The blood will run, and run deep. No one will be safe. Do you hear me? No one."

A chill ran down my spine at his words, but I could say nothing. Not when something in my brain was going haywire. What else could explain the elation I felt at the idea of him exploding into violence over me—for me. Or the zing running through my blood for no other reason than I was suddenly turned on more than I had ever been. The hard grip he maintained on my bicep burned, not from pain but excitement. He—

What was wrong with me? I tried to shake my head clear, but the emotions between us were too strong. We were being pulled together like a cosmic magnetic force.

He took a step closer and his harsh breath fanned across the shell of my ear, eliciting a shiver from me. But it was when his teeth scraped across the tendon that ran from my neck to my shoulder that I nearly lost it. Arousal spiked and I knew when this was over, I would need new panties. The air in my lungs froze as I waited for him to bite me. He'd already drawn blood figuratively, why not literally?

I heard him chuckle, and I wondered, did he know?

"God dammit, Mandy. You want this don't you? Your desire is thick like mine. It seeps from your skin laced with pheromones that make me ache to be inside you."

My breathing hitched again, my throat constricted.I couldn't answer him even if he wanted me to.

"You want my dick in your cunt right now so bad you can practically taste it."

Fuck. I did. I really really did. But could I say it? Was it in me to give him that kind of permission? To take whatever he wanted, however he wanted. The words were hovering on my lips. I had to be nuts.

"Do it," I whispered, my voice more guttural than sexy.

"Fuck." He sounded a little regretful, but he turned me towards the couch and pushed me against the back of it. "Say no right now or forever hold your fucking peace, baby. Because in two seconds, I'm going to be so far into this there will be no turning back.”

"Do it," I repeated, my voice a little stronger and steeped in desperation.

There was so much pent-up emotion and frustration between us, we were both going to implode if we didn't see this through. And apparently, he didn't need to be told twice.

I gasped when he fisted his hand into my hair and pulled my head back to his. "Every time you prance around in my house in these fucking shorts, I want to rip into them. I mean, half your ass hangs out of them. I swear if you ever walk around in front of anyone wearing these fuckers, I will blister your ass until you can't sit down. Then I'll fuck you blind."

His possessive words slammed into me as the pain in my head morphed into something far stronger. Desire like I had never felt in my life. As soon as he touched me, I was going to go off like a damned rocket. This Axel was so different from the one I remembered and the change excited me.

My heart raced as I waited impatiently for what he would do next. I didn't wait long. He pulled my hair to the side and exposed my neck again before he buried his face between my shoulder and neck. There, he was all teeth and tongue along my feverish skin. The fact he seemed to like using his teeth on me shoved me to the brink of wild.

My nipples were hard points against the shirt I still wore, and even that touch against them was almost too much. When he bit at my neck, I felt the sensation everywhere. My skin tingled with it.

"Please, Axel." On one hand I wasn't sure what I was asking for and on the other I knew that I needed so much more from him. If we were going to do this then I wanted it all. Especially if this was the only chance I would get with him. Just one more time. That's all I needed. One more time.

Or so I told myself—even if I didn't quite believe it.

"You don't have to beg. Nothing is going to change my mind now." He tugged a little bit harder on my hair until my head fell back against his chest. "Although I have to admit, hearing those words from your lush lips makes my dick harder than I expected."

I couldn't decide if his words were tinged with anger or desire or whether it fully mattered which. Maybe both. Sometimes those two things weren't as different as might be expected. They were strong emotions that could illicit the same reactions. "Then show me," I told him, my harsh tone no more than a whisper.

"Show you, huh?" He chuckled, his voice sounding very close to my ear. "Will you still be so eager for this when I put you on your knees and make you take my cock down your throat?"

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