Page 214 of Entangled

I push my glasses up my nose and fight not to shout. “I am noprincess, Jayk. I didn’tgrow up with everything. I survived, and that’s all I did—until I came here. You all gave me more, and now I want it. I’m keeping it. So yes, I pick you.AndI pick them.”

Jayk snorts derisively, flashing me a hateful glare.

“Choosing them doesn’t mean I love you any less, Jayk,” I insist heatedly. “When you’ve been told you’re worth nothing for long enough, you start feeling like that’s all you deserve—but I want more than that. I want all of it. I want all of you.”

He comes around behind me like a stalking wolf. “I’m nothing now, is that it? You get to run around here and treat me like a sex toy and fuck everyone here, and I?—”

“I havenevertreated you like that. If anything, it’s the other way around.Yourstupid deal made me into a sex toy. That’sallI would have been to you if I hadn’t put an end to it.”

The night is dark and blankets us through the trees, and I wish my frustration could burn bright enough to beat it back. I’m going to scream with it. He’s too angry. Too ready to hear the worst and refusing to accept the best.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Jayk, but don’t you dare put any kind of moral judgment on me for sleeping with all of you when that was the entire reason you all wanted me here in the first place. Or was I only meant to like it with you?” I ask, voice harsh, and his teeth glint in the moonlight as he sneers.

I step back into his space, and he grips my arms hard enough for me to feel every warning callous, but I lean up anyway.

“Ilovebeing at Jasper’s feet as he strokes my hair. I adored when Dom spanked me while I choked on Beau’s dick. It turns me on that Lucky and Beau fucked me and then sent me on to see you, and that Beau has been filling me with these ridiculous plugs to get me ready for him.” I end on a hiss, but I think I’ve gone too far when Jayk’s face goes unnaturally still.

He shoves my arms down, spins me around, and yanks up my dress. There’s nopleaseormaybeabout his touch—there never is—he moves me like I’m a doll for him to undress, his coarse hands scraping over my skin.

His hand slides between my ass cheeks and finds the plug.

“You let him put this in you?” he growls. “This wasmine. You... what the fuck is this?”

My dress is yanked higher again, and I can tell the moment he reads the writing on my ass. The skirts fall back down, and I turn, looking at Jayk nervously. He’s almost monstrous in the dark. My heart is beating too fast, and my body has been used and teased beyond bearing. I should be extinguished of lust. Done. Maxed out.

But I’m not.

After Beau’s edging, my body is dancing with hot, squirming need. I want Jayk. I want everything he can give me.

“Say your safeword, Eden.” The words are ground out, raw as teeth through flesh. “Say it. Right. Now.”

My stomach flips in apprehension, and I edge back half a step.

Jayk tracks it, trembling with restraint.

He’s angry. He’sreallyangry. Angry enough that I should probably listen to him. But every bit of trepidation is married to shivery, decadent lust. There’s something wrong with me, probably, but I can’t make myself ashamed of it. Jayk makes my fear safe.

Though he doesn’t seem very safe right now.

“I don’t want to say it.” My body quakes, edgy with tension. “I’m not ending this until we talk.”

Jayk leans forward, his legs spreading into an attack position I recognize from sparring practice.

“Thenrun, princess.” He’s made of shadows now, of the fanged and hungry predators that live in the night. “Run as fast as you can.”

Chapter47

Eden

Survival tip #325

Sometimes, to catch your prey,

you need to become the prey.

Irun.

Jayk doesn’t follow immediately, and I’m quickly swallowed by trees. I lift my skirts, holding them so they won’t trip me up, and my pulse roars in my ears.

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