Chapter 46
Ayla
The bike’s rumble dies, and the silence crashes in like a wave.
Maksim kills the engine at the same clearing as before, ringed by pines so tall the moonlight barely reaches the ground. Cold bites the fresh tattoo under my jacket, sharp and bright, but it’s nothing compared to the heat already coiling low in my belly.
I hop off the bike. He swings his leg off. boots crunching needles and leaves. Turns. Looks at me.
His eyes are black in the dark, predatory, patient. The same eyes that hunted me the first time, when I really thought I might die out here.
Not tonight.
His hands graze under my chin as he removes my helmet, hangs it from the handle bar and cups my face. Almost gentle if it weren’t for his wild eyes.
His lips press to my forehead before he pulls back, hands dropping cold.
“Run, Beda,” he says, voice low and rough, the nickname sliding over me like a blade.
I smile—slow, deliberate. “Catch me if you can, Pakhan.”
I shrug the leather jacket off my shoulders. Let it drop. The cold hits my arms, my collarbone, the new crown still stinging under the second skin. I don’t wait for his reaction. I bolt.
Adrenaline slams through me the second my boots hit the forest floor. Leaves crunch, branches whip my bare arms, but I don’t care. I’m laughing—breathless, wild, as I tear deeper into the trees.
Behind me, his boots hit the ground. Heavy. Measured. Tracking.
My skin heats. He’s hunting me.
It’s delicious and terrifying and everything I want.
I yank the thin top over my head mid-stride, let it catch on a low branch like a flag.
A small breadcrumb for my Pakhan.
The night air licks my skin, nipples tightening against the thin fabric of my bra.
I hear him now. Closer. Boots deliberate, crushing undergrowth. He’s not rushing. He’s savoring.
My pulse hammers in my throat, between my legs. Wet already. Slick.
I dart behind a thick trunk, press my back to rough bark, listening.
He stops. Inhales. I can almost see him—head tilted, nostrils flaring, scenting me on the wind.
“You didn’t climb this time,” his voice carries, amused, dark. “Smart girl.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
“I can smell how wet you are from here.”
Heat floods my face, my core. Fuck. He’s not wrong.
“Getting naked, Ayla? You think that buys mercy?”
I push off the tree and run again—harder this time. Letting him hear me. Letting him chase.
His laugh is low, feral. Then the boots move faster.
“There’s my girl.”
I’m laughing, wild and reckless when he lunges.
His hand clamps my wrist, yanks me back against his chest so hard the air punches out of me. I twist, elbow flying, knee driving up. He takes the hit, grunts, spins me, slams me face-first against the nearest tree. Bark scrapes my palms, my stomach. His body pins me there—hard, hot, unyielding.
I buck. Grind back against the thick ridge in his jeans. He growls against my ear.
“Still fighting.”
“Still winning,” I taunt, breathless.
His hand fists my hair, yanks my head back until my throat arches. His other hand shoves my skirt up, rips the lace of my panties to the side with one brutal tug. Fabric tears. Dangles uselessly off one thigh.
“You can think you win,” he murmurs, teeth grazing my neck. “But you’re already caught.”
I twist in his grip, get one hand free. My knife’s in my boot. I lift my leg, yank the blade free, spin out of his hold, and press the edge to the side of his throat. Just enough to prick. A bead of blood wells.
He doesn’t flinch. His eyes darken. Hunger. Pride.
His hand wraps around my throat, firm. “Cut me deeper if you want to come tonight.”
I drag the flat of the blade down his jaw instead, then lick the blood from the edge—slow, deliberate.
I pull back and his eyes lock on my mouth.
For one suspended second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just watches the smear of his blood on my tongue like he can’t decide whether to kill me for that or come in his jeans.
The hand at my throat flexes.
A dark, ruined sound tears out of him—half laugh, half warning.
“You know what that does to me, Beda.”
I smile, slow and filthy, still holding my knife between us. “You like it when I play with sharp things.”
His gaze drops to my mouth again. Then lower. My bra. My skirt shoved up. My thighs bare in the dark. Back to my eyes.
Something in his face turns meaner. Hungrier. Like whatever leash he had on himself just burned through.
“Dangerous game, Beda,” he mutters, voice gone rough as gravel. “You want me feral.”
His control snaps.
He shoves me to the ground hard. The knife slips from my hand. Leaves and dirt bite into my skin. He’s on me in a second—hand back around my throat, the other ripping his belt open. The sound of his zipper is obscene in the quiet woods.
He forces between my legs, his knees driving them apart, denim scraping rough over my skin. He doesn’t ease in.
One hard thrust and he’s buried deep, the Jacob’s ladder dragging along every sensitive inch inside me. I cry out—sharp, raw pleasure-pain. The ridges catch, spark, make my vision white at the edges.
“Fuck—yes!”
He sets a brutal rhythm. No mercy. No gentleness. Just claiming. Owning. Each thrust slams me up, my back dragging along the leaves and dirt. My fingers dig into his shoulders, skirt bunched at my waist, torn panties dangling like a flag of surrender.
“Mine,” he growls, fingers tightening on my throat. “Say it.”
“Yours, fuck! Harder—”
He gives it to me. Harder. Deeper. The metal rungs drag and catch with every stroke, pushing me higher, faster. Sweat slicks our skin. Leaves stick to my back, my thighs.
My legs tighten around him. His free hand cracks across my thigh—sharp sting that makes me clench around him.
“Stay open,” he grunts.
I bite his forearm when he leans over me. Taste blood again. Drink him down.
He groans deep, guttural, as he loses the last thread of restraint.
He hooks one of my knees over his elbow, opens me wider, slams back in.
Fuck.
His eyes are wild. Sweat on his brow. The cut on his jaw still bleeding. He looks like a man possessed. Like he’s drowning in me and doesn’t want to surface.
He fucks me like he’s trying to crawl inside my skin.
“Bite me again,” he rasps, voice shredded, “and I’ll drag your ass home and chain you to the fucking bed.”
I laugh—ragged, breathless. “Promise?”
He snarls. “You’re a fucking problem, Beda.”
He slams in hard enough to punch the air from my lungs. Then pulls out so sharp I choke on my moan.
My body chases him on instinct, empty and aching, and his eyes catch it.
That look on his face—God.
Like he wants to eat me alive.