Page 74 of Seek Me Darling

I’ve spent my life building walls and sharpening edges, making sure no one could get close enough to eventouchme. But Rule doesn’t knock on doors. Hecarves through them.

I clench my jaw, trying to breathe around the ache inside me. Rage and heat war for dominance, and still, that blade traces the lines of my body like he already knows what the answer will be.

I jerk against his grip.

Not hard enough to break it though I doubt I even could. Just enough to say,I'm still here.

His hold tightens.

“You want to fight,” he says quietly, calm as steel. “And you think that means you’re still in control.”

I grit my teeth.

I can’t see his eyes behind those reflective lenses. Can’t read a thing from that blank, armored mask. But his presence is everywhere—pressing into me from all sides.

He’s already inside. Not physically, not yet. But close. Too fucking close.

And every second I spend fighting myself is another second hewins.

I feel the slick heat between my thighs. The way my body keeps subtly grinding against him—seeking friction, chasing what itneeds. Every inch of me is trembling, pulsing, aching. My pride is burning out like a dying star, and all that’s left is a desperate want.

I want to bite him. I want to scream. I want to rip free and murder him.

But more than all of that?

I want to submit. I want him todestroyme.

Control yourself, Seanna.

But I can’t. Not fully. Not when he’s this close. Not when I canfeelhow hard he is—feel the tension in his thighs, the pressure of his hips, the way he holds his position like a king above his prize.

“Still holding on?” he murmurs, blade grazing the underside of my breast—light, taunting. “Even when your body’s already given you up?”

My back arches before I can stop it. My wrists pull hard against his grip. I hate the sound that slips from my throat—it’s not a protest.

It’s awhimper.

“Fuck you,” I snap, desperate to reclaim something—anything—of myself.

His head tilts.

“You will,” he says, calm and controlled. “But not until youask.”

And that? That breaks something loose.

Not my will. Not completely.

But the wall between resistance andneedcrumbles, brick by crumbling brick.

His blade drags lower—not cutting. Hovering. Waiting.

“You want the pain,” he murmurs. “You want someone to take everything you’re carrying and rip it away. You want tofeelsomething stronger than guilt or anger or control.”

I don’t say no. But Ican’tsay yes either.

So I stay silent, my entire body screaming louder than any words ever could.

He waits. Quiet and still.

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