Chapter 8 #2
The ground pitches beneath my feet, soft and slick with leaves and mud, my heels slipping uselessly beneath me. I rip them off, clutching them in one hand as I push harder. Faster. Deeper. The breath burns in my lungs, my heart punching through my ribs.
And somewhere behind me, I swear I hear him laugh. A dark, feral sound that promises one thing: this is far from over.
Twigs slap across my face, thorned vines snagging at my skirt. The hem rips as I charge through the underbrush, the sting of bramble slicing across my feet, but I don’t stop.
My heart crashes in my ears, too loud, too fast, drowning out everything except the ragged thrum of panic.
And still, I don’t hear him anymore. No footsteps. No rustling leaves. Nothing but silence and the knowledge that he’s out there closing in, which somehow makes it worse.
The air thickens around me, saturated with dread. My skin prickles, every nerve on fire. And beneath all that fear, something else winds low in my belly. Something darker. Hungrier.
It’s not just fear making me run. It’s exhilaration. The high of the chase.
But now’s not exactly the time to unpack that particular brand of insanity.
Maybe later. You know…when I’m not being chased barefoot through the woods by a trigger-happy psychopath with a hard-on for psychological warfare.
Up ahead, the trees thicken, shadows knotting like tangled rope. If I can just make it there, duck behind one, find cover—
A brutal force yanks me back mid-stride.
An arm loops around my waist like a vise, lifting me clean off the ground. I slam into a tree with a scream, air whooshing from my lungs in a strangled gasp. His body crashes into mine, solid muscle and rage, pinning me in place.
Before I can scream again, one hand clamps around my mouth, the other splaying flat over my stomach to keep me still.
Then his voice scrapes across my skin like a blade. “Did you really think you could run from me, Ms. Prosecutor?”
His nose brushes my throat, breathing me in like I’m the first inhale after a lifetime underwater.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this moment?” His irises blaze as his fingers wrap around my throat. “To have you like this. Gasping. Cornered. Mine. Without metal chained around my wrists.”
“What now, huh?” I lift my chin in defiance, ignoring the heat crawling through me like it knows who it belongs to. “You gonna prove what a man you are by choking a woman against a tree?”
His mouth curves, but it’s not a smile. It’s a threat.
“Net, detka. I am going to do far worse.”
Before I can spit back a word, he grabs me, spinning me so fast the world blurs. My front hits the tree, cheek scraping bark, and then his fist is in my hair, yanking my head back until my eyes find his.
Wild. Unhinged.
I let out a small, mocking laugh, knowing what I do to him. What I make him become.
He rips my skirt up without warning, and the slap across my ass that follows lands with bone-deep force, the sound echoing through the trees. I gasp, more from the humiliation than the pain.
And beneath the shame, a raw, hungry need tightens, wanting him to do it again.
“You think it’s funny?” he growls against my ear, his breath hot and vicious. “You won’t be laughing when I am through with you.”
Every molecule in my body lights up as his hand moves between my thighs, rough fingers parting me, stroking through the slick evidence of my arousal.
“Look at that…” He lets out a grunt. “You hate me, and still your cunt is soaked for me.”
“That’s a lie,” I snap, though the crack in my tone tells a different story.
His chuckle vibrates through me, full of wicked triumph, while his fingers play with my clit. Circling. Taunting. Tormenting.
Each stroke makes my muscles weak and my exhales hitch. I clamp my lips shut to stifle the moan building in my throat, but it breaks free anyway, shaky and mortifying.
The metallic clink of his belt echoes through the stillness, and heat floods my chest, spine pulled tight by a raw, animal hunger I have no hope of killing.
One hand holds me pinned, fingers curled tight around the back of my neck, forcing my cheek against the bark once again. My body is strung tight, a live wire sparking under his grip. Every inch of me screams with anticipation, untamed and ready to snap.
Then he drives into me in one savage, unforgiving thrust, and the air tears from my lungs like it’s been stolen. A sound rips from my throat—part moan, part cry, choked and desperate as he fills me completely, merciless in his pace.
I’m not ready for this, yet my body opens for him like it’s been waiting for him all along.
I crave him. Recklessly. Ravenously.
And that might be the most fucked-up part of all.
Cold metal drags against my walls. I jerk beneath him, eyes rolling back.
Oh God. He’s pierced.
“Yes!” I cry as he slams into me like I’m the battlefield and he’s hell-bent on burning it all to the ground.
He takes me like it’s vengeance. Like every insult, every courtroom blow, every scar I left on his soul demands repayment.
His thrusts are punishing, each one ripping a breathless sound from my throat, grinding me down until there’s nothing left but surrender. A beastly growl tears from him as his fingers clamp my hips, bruising me with the kind of grip that swears I’ll never forget him.
“You give in to me so easily, Ms. Prosecutor,” he rasps. “Even when it kills you.”
He pounds deeper, harder. Each thrust is a brutal promise, like he’s trying to fuck something out of me. Or maybe out of himself.
His pace turns wild, like breaking me is the only thing that might save him. And God, I want him to. The hard bite of metal rubs against my walls with every drive of his cock, each piercing dragging fire through me, pushing me closer to a place I can’t crawl back from.
“Say it.” His teeth sink into the curve of my neck, and it only fuels me. “Say you hate me, moya ptichka.”
“I hate you,” I gasp, the truth dragging out of me on a ragged breath.
“Good girl.”
His pace turns ruthless, each drive more feral than the last, like he’s making me feel what I just said. One hand fastens around my throat while the other slides lower, rough fingers circling my clit—not to give me pleasure, but to show me what he’s capable of.
He pinches. Slaps. Toys with me like my body is his weapon of choice.
“I hate you too. Every defiant inch. The way you make me need this. Make me need you.”
His words rip through me, and my body answers anyway, helpless and burning, caught between the heat sparking off us and a desire I can’t outrun.
“This is nothing.” My nails claw against the bark. “Just sex. You’re nothing to me. You never will be.”
His fingers knot in my hair and yank, dragging my spine into an arch until every thought burns out. No air or logic. Just the feeling of him. The sheer savagery of his fucking.
“And this is all you’re good for,” he taunts, fingers clamping around my throat again, pressure tightening as his mouth charts a ruthless path down my neck—biting, sucking, devouring. “A tight hole to fill. A body to break. And mine to take again and again.”
Rage tears through me. But with every violent thrust, my body submits to him like it never left.
“Is that supposed to hurt me?” I laugh again. “You want me to cry? Want me to be sad about it? Keep dreaming, asshole. I’m using you just as much.”
His hips slam into me in response, cruel and relentless, dragging a moan from my throat that I wish I could bury. My back bends, and I curse him for knowing exactly how to tear me apart.
I melt for him. Yield for him. Break for him.
His touch is callous as he circles and spanks my clit while slamming into me over and over, until I’m crying his name like it’s salvation and sin rolled into one.
“Oh fuck, Aleksei! This is too much.” His name leaves my mouth like a sob, like a curse, like a plea I never meant to give him.
He pounds into me even harder. “You can take it.”
His grip around my throat cinches as I call out his name again.
“Aleksei…”
“Yes. That’s it.” His words are strained and volatile. “Moan for me, detka. Fucking take it all. You’re my filthy whore to use any way I want.”
The words crash through me like a lightning strike, and it’s all I need to let go. My body convulses, clenching and exploding around him in a blinding climax that rips through me with a vicious sob.
I shatter around him, my pleasure crashing through me. Still, he moves inside me, dragging out every aftershock, refusing to stop until I’m limp and quivering against the tree.
His own grunts come in quicker right before he lets out a deep-chested growl as hot spurts coat me, marking me.
Right now, I’m really grateful that I’m on the pill.
When his body finally eases, the tension in his limbs slowly dissolving, he pushes off me as though I’m made of acid, and I can’t help the way it stings.
I stay where I am, unable to turn around, to look at him and face what I let him do. My skirt is still rucked up around my hips, my panties twisted halfway down my thighs, but it’s the shame slithering higher that makes me sick inside.
My eyes close as I register his belt sliding back into place and the faint click of a zipper, right before his footsteps start away from me.
My God, what was I thinking?
I should be pissed at myself for letting this happen. For letting him in. For enjoying it.
But instead, all I can think about is how empty it feels without him.
Eventually, I peel myself off the tree and tug my panties up before drawing down my skirt with shaky hands, like smoothing the fabric can somehow undo what just happened.
I crouch to wedge my heels back on, but the second the sole hits the ground, pain rips through the back of my foot.
“Fuck—ow!”
A rustle slices through the silence behind me.
“What’s wrong?” His voice sends my heart crashing into my ribs.
I whip around, eyes wide. “Jesus!”
He emerges from the shadows, arms folded, that unreadable expression carved into his face.
Something in my chest lurches. I don’t know what stuns me more: that he stayed, or that part of me is relieved he did, though I don’t understand the reasoning behind it.
“What do you care?” I push past him with a limp I try and fail to hide.
He doesn’t let me get far. One second, I’m hobbling forward; the next, I’m airborne, scooped into his arms like I weigh nothing.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Carrying you.” His tone is dry, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “What does it look like?”
“I can walk just fine.”
“Of course you can,” he deadpans. “You looked really graceful back there, princessa.”
“Maybe don’t sneak up on me like some backwoods serial killer next time.”
He mutters something in Russian. Definitely a curse. “Are you always this difficult when someone is trying to help you?”
“Only when that someone is the reason I need help in the first place.”
“What can I say?” A grin snakes up as he pulls me closer to his chest. “I always clean up my messes.”
“God, I hate you.”
My attempt at pushing him further away is futile. The man is just too strong.
His lips tug into an even more maddeningly smug curve, infuriating and infatuating all at once. “Wouldn’t be fun if you didn’t.”
He exhales a laugh when I groan, the sound vibrating through his chest, and I hate how stupidly safe he feels.
Instead of pulling away, I let go. Just for a second. Long enough to allow my cheek to rest against the steady rhythm of his heart.
When his arms tighten around me, it’s not rough. It’s like he’s been waiting for me to fall into him all this time.