Page 50 of Steel Rain

“I prefer doing things the hard way,” I couldn’t help but smile as I mirrored her posture, and we circled like two dogs in the arena. She took an exploratory jab, and I dodged it. She did another, and I did the same.

Oh, if she had wanted those hits to connect, they would have. I knew that, and so did she. That was her consent, said louder than if she had screamed it at the top of her lungs.

I lunged for her, grabbing the backs of her thighs and encircling them around my waist. She fell onto her back. One hand grabbed at my shirt, the other tried to break her fall. In a flash, my hand was on my waist, to the karambit knife that I always had, and the crooked claw came out, the point jamming right near that white, delicate throat.

The gold symbol of the Navy SEALS glinted up towards me.

“We’re not in the octagon, Snow White,” I said, pushing the tip against her skin. Not enough to break it. Just enough for her to feel the thrill of danger. “Those rules don’t apply.”

“Asshole,” she said through clenched teeth. There was a slight smirk on the corner of her mouth. One she tried to repress.

I chuckled, and leaned down until I could nudge her cheek with my nose.

“Absolutely,” I confirmed. “Now, be a very good girl, and spread your legs and stay very, very still. I’d hate to mark that perfect white skin of yours.”

She wasn’t going to obey. She jammed her knee into my ribs again, and I grunted with the impact. I brought the tip of the blade down to the sensitive skin on her clavicle and nicked the skin. She sucked in a breath. A single drop of blood pooled on the wound, and I looked at it with a hunger I had never felt before.

“Look what you’ve made me do, sweet Snow White.” I leaned down and licked the sweet, red blood from her skin, tasting the salt on my tongue. “Now stay still.”

“My skin is already fucked up,” she said with a challenging laugh. “You’ve seen my scars.”

“Indeed,” I said, pulling her shirt from her trousers, but keeping the blade steady against her. “They’re fucking gorgeous.”

She squirmed as the cold air hit her stomach, and I tsked. “Now, now. Be a good girl and stay still.”

I needed to see those scars. The scars that mirrored mine. I wanted to see how she and I were two sides of the same fucking coin. How life had marked us in similar ways. I needed a greater connection to her. I was hungry for it.

She was a siren that needed to be dominated. The She-Wolf that needed to be mounted by her equal.

I licked my lips when I saw the cluster of scars on her stomach. So jagged, and broken. So white, and rough in contrast to the marbled skin around it. A sign of strength. Of perseverance. Of a will to live and fight. And it made me hard.

My cock bounced in my jeans as I leaned down and ran my tongue against those marks, biting on its jagged edges. She whimpered, her hips bucking, causing her cunt to rub against my cock.Oh, she was going to be destroyed … I would ruin her.

But there were some things we had to settle first.

My freehand went down her stomach, down to the waistband of her trousers, pulling them down.

“No underwear,” I groaned, circling my tongue on her belly button. “Good girl.”

Her head tilted back, her eyes closing as she bit her lip. What warring emotions were happening behind those eyes? I wasn’t sure. But whatever it was, it was extraordinary.

I could smell her arousal. Her heat. It was so animalistic that I was almost dizzy with it. The need to mount her, to fill her and breed her was so pure that I wasn’t sure if I was still sane.

“You’ll stop hanging out with O’Malley,” I said, coming back up so that our noses touched, her breaths both coming out as white clouds, mixing in the space between us.

“What?” Her hazy eyes were unfocused, as she blinked away whatever she was feeling.

“You’ll stop hanging out with O’Malley. Or any man, for that matter, unless it’s for work.” Oh, my demand was insane to my own ears. But it didn’t stop me from making it.

“Why?” She tilted her head, amusement glinting in those gray eyes. “I’m just a little girl lost in the woods. I need someone to protect me.”

“I’ll protect you.” Christ, did I feel that oath down to my very soul.

She laughed. It was a cruel, sardonic laugh that made me want to grab her throat and squeeze the amusement from her tone.

When her eyes turned back to me, they were full of a cloudy rage that I couldn’t begin to decipher.

“My father said one thing that made sense to me.” She looked up at the sky, her eyes pained as if she didn’t like to admit that her old man was right about anything. “A woman has to get married to protect herself. Become another man’s property, and the other men will respect it.”

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