Page 110 of Black Sheep

“I understand,” I say because I can find no other words. Fires I’ve kept burning on the coals of my hate are losing a vital ingredient—my will to keep them thriving. Instead, I yearn for impossible things.

But are they impossible? He’s obsessed with you.

“Do you? Understand?” Axel demands.

I’m not ready for the pithiness in his tone. For the ravaged emotions swirling through his eyes. They speak to a torment that should be absent. He is a monster, after all. Except…

I shake my head, but the action is futile in restoring reason. And with my own bewilderment far too close to the surface, I open my fist and flatten my hand on his chest. His heart beats, strong and steady. And I blurt, “No. Not really. Make me understand, Axel.”

The fingers cradling me tense, vibrating in a tight tremble. He stares down at me for the longest moment. “He has to be held accountable, Cleo.”

I swallow. “For what…exactly?”

He starts to answer. The elevator doors open. He catches my hand and marches me down a wide, carpeted hallway to tall, carved double doors. A swipe of a silver keycard and an input code release the door.

My heels click on dark marble floors before they’re muffled by the thick rug dividing the large, opulent space. Automatic lights illuminate the living room and I get an impression of gallery-sized windows, stunning views, and sumptuous furniture before I’m once against imprisoned in his arms.

“For what? For me. For us. For every fucking thing.” Pure ice cuts through every single word.

My breath strangles. “For us? But Finnan didn’t—”

The mouth he slams on mine is hard. Lethal. He withdraws just as quickly. “No! I can’t tolerate hearing his name on your lips. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to—”

“Why?”

“Why what?” His voice is gravel rough.

“Why can’t you tolerate it?”

“Because he’s not fucking worthy of it! I don’t give a fuck what he gives you that I…that no one else can.” The eyes piercing mine are dark and stormy, his nostrils flaring with barely contained fury. But there’s something else in there. A ragged entreaty that I can’t look away from. “Tell me what it is, Cleo. Make me understand so I can stop driving myself fucking nuts about it. So it doesn’t feel like my insides are being ripped every time I think about it.”

“Axel—”

He propels me backward until my back hits the glass wall. He pins me with his body, traps my hands above my head with one hand, the other curving around my neck to completely imprison me. Gray eyes gone wild and fierce laser me. “Do you love him, Cleo? Is that it? Do you…love that bastard?” The questions fall at our feet like unpinned grenades, with their potential to annihilate in the seconds it takes for me to answer.

“No.”

A deathly stillness shrouds us. He stops breathing altogether. Almost as if he’s afraid to move. A single tremble twitches his lips before he speaks. “I…What?” he mutters.

“I don’t love him, Axel.”

He inhales at the words, his throat working. “Again. Say it again, Cleo.”

“I don’t love him.”

A million questions flash from his eyes. Some bring torment, others fury. Each one blasts my skin. But it’s his trembling hand that decides the next course of action. The mouth hovering a whisper from mine that tells me what’s coming next.

The side zipper securing my dress rolls down, exposing me from armpit to hip.

“I have more questions,” he says. His voice is barely audible. “Questions you’ll answer when I’m done.”

“Done with what?” I whisper.

“Done with imprinting my cock in that tight cunt. Done with making you come so hard you won’t know whether to beg me to stop or scream for more.”

The kiss he’s denied us both finally arrives. Glorious, decadent, heart pounding, he kisses me like I’m heaven and hell. Like he’s as addicted to me as I fear I am to him.

His hand slides through the opening to cup one breast in a bold, sizzling caress. He pinches my nipple between his finger and thumb, teasing, tweaking, tormenting until my knees give way.

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