Page 87 of Controlled Burn
His voice dropped to a whisper. “No.”
She picked up the Gatorade and wiped it off on her pant leg.
“I’m not doing this here,” she said, voice like splintered glass. “Not in this kitchen. Not while everyone’s pretending not to listen.”
He hesitated. “Then where?”
She looked up. And this time, she didn’t see the man who’d steadied her on her first fire. Didn’t see the captain who once felt like safety.
She saw a coward. And that cut deeper than rage.
“You don’t get to ask me that,” she said. “You don’t get to want anything from me.”
He nodded. Just once. Slow. Like it hurt.
She left him standing there. Let him feel it—dismissal. Emptiness. The same nothing he’d made her feel in front of his wife.
By the end of the shift, she was unraveling. Her skin too tight. Her thoughts looping like static—shame, heat, arousal, disgust. On repeat.
Because what scared her most wasn’t that Dean had taken control.
It was what she’d wanted. That her body still burned for it. That some dark, broken shard of her still craved it.
Tell me I’m nothing. Make me kneel. Make me forget everything but the way you hurt me.
That night, she curled into herself on her bed. Knees drawn to her chest. A single candle flickered nearby—vanilla-scented. She hated the smell now. Too soft. Too sweet. Like something she no longer deserved.
She pressed her forehead to her arms and whispered, “What’s wrong with me?”
No one answered.
Not Jake. Not Dean. Not even herself.
She lay back. Closed her eyes.
And dreamed of hands around her throat.
Maddox
He didn’t sleep. Not really. He just lay in bed, eyes open to the dark, every muscle aching with the memory of her. Of what he’d done. Of how much he’d wanted it.
Her voice haunted him—every word, every gasp, every whimper.
You like being used, don’t you?
God, he shouldn’t have touched her like that. Not after everything. Not after what he’d promised himself, what he’d promised Rachel, what he’d promised her.
But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop picturing the way she looked at him—defiant and desperate all at once, mouth swollen, eyes wild, body arching into every rough thing he did to her. He couldn’t stop remembering the taste of her sweat, the sound she made when he gripped her throat, the way she begged for more.
He hated himself for it. Hated the arousal that still curled low and hot in his gut, even as shame twisted through his chest. Hated the way he wanted to claim her again, to mark her up so thoroughly no one else would dare lay a finger on her.
His wife was gone. His career was hanging by a thread. He’d betrayed every rule—every code he was supposed to live by.
And yet…
He still wanted her. Even if it meant losing everything.
He closed his eyes and saw her again—on her knees, throat marked, lips parted, eyes blazing with need and fury. Saw the bruise on her collarbone, purple and vivid and his.
