Chapter 19
SKYLAR
Liberation. Lust. Fear.
I feel all of them, even now, as I’m forced on my knees for Knox. Harder than ever. Hotter too.
Self-preservation should send me running. But this unhinged, predatory man is fixated on me, and fascination roots me in place. My body sways toward him, mesmerized by his hazel eyes.
My nipples pebble as he pulls on my hair again. The ache between my legs throbs when he lowers his face to mine.
Provoking him was a risk. One the older me never would’ve taken.
The new me, she’s helpless against this pull. This connection with my stalker, who’s been circling me since before we even met.
His protection is crucial for my survival, true. But I’d want him regardless, survival or not. My desire for him feels multilayered and infinite.
Knox Colbert is the man of my dreams. Of my sweetest nightmares.
His menacing growl settles at the base of my spine, and another wave of desire pools between my thighs, sweet and unstoppable.
I’m wet for him. For his power. For his ownership of me.
After last night, once the shock settled, I knew I was in too deep. I’m his. As harsh and as rough as he’s been with me, my heart wants what it wants.
“Knox…” I don’t even know what else to say, but I have to say something. “At some point, you’ll help me, right?”
“Told you already.” He tilts his head, his features tightening into an angry frown. “Yes, but not yet.”
“Then when?”
While he considers this, something stirs inside me. A desire. It’s dark, unfamiliar, and mostly wrong.
It whispers, Kill Bronwyn.
I shouldn’t fantasize about killing my sister.
I’m scared to admit it out loud, not only because it would make me realize how fucked up I’ve become, but because I’m afraid Knox will see this new side of me and hate it.
After all, he likes this version of me. The delicate, non-murderous Skylar he thought he kidnapped.
He might get rid of me.
My chest tightens at the thought of being without Knox.
I don’t think I can take it.
That’s why, when he doesn’t answer, I come up with a compromise. A watered-down version of the truth. Enough to soothe me without making me sound like a monster. Something I’ve asked Knox for before and that didn’t send him running.
“Fine,” I start. “You don’t have to answer right now. But at least promise me I can confront Bronwyn. I need to tell her—”
“We talked about this. You won’t be telling her a damn thing.” His teeth sink into my neck—biting, sucking, marking. “She doesn’t deserve you. She isn’t worthy of you. You have me now, Skylar. Only me.”
At the last word, he bites down the hardest, breaking skin.
Pain rips through me, heat searing like a branding iron.
I scream. I cry. But then it happens again. My screams twist into moans. Arousal floods me and soaks my thighs. I clutch his arms, panting, needy for him.
“Don’t try to go see her either.” Knox’s breath burns against my wounded neck. His hand slides from my hair to my breast, squeezing me. “I like you, Trouble. But have no doubt, I’ll kill you before I ever let you get away. Trust me, when the alternative is being theirs, you’re better off dead.”
By the time he’s done threatening me, my mind is a mess.
Knox doesn’t wait for me to catch up. He stalks off toward the table.
Every step is a promise he’s about to bring something truly awful from the table. Something that’s going to turn me on so much that I’ll end up crying and begging for him.
Suspense, hunger, and need blend together, eating me alive. I’m obsessed with the sight of him as he strips down to nothing.
“What are you going to do to me?” It’s an effort to hold my hand in place and not rub myself to relieve this ache.
I want to wait for him. Be obedient.
To be his.
But…
Fuck.
It’s agony, wanting him this badly.
A low, pathetic whimper escapes me.
Knox freezes at the humiliating sound I make. My heart swoops when he looks over his shoulder, his gaze intense and probing.
“Knox?”
He sticks to his silence, grabbing something from the table. Only then does he turn completely to face me.
In his hands, he’s holding one thin rope and a longer, thicker one.
My gaze must look just as feral as his as I drag my eyes down his body, over the faint trail of hair leading from his stomach to the sharp ridges of his V-shaped muscle. An arrow pointing straight to his dick.
I lick my dry lips, staring at his cock that’s thick, hard, almost brushing his stomach. The wet gleam at the tip makes my mouth water.
“Skylar.” His voice is as intimidating as the ropes dangling in his hands.
It awakens something inside me. My survival instinct. A voice screaming at me to run, because being bound in a place like Colbert could mean death.
“Don’t.” My knees scrape on the cement floor as I try to get away.
It’s pointless. There’s no escape. There’s only delaying the inevitable. This sickness that’s blooming between us.
“Put them aside,” I croak. “I don’t—don’t want it.”
Except you do.
“Be good.” His knuckles are white from how hard he grips the ropes. “I know you can.”
Fear of what I’ve become has my body sagging, betraying me as I fall forward.
Knox is faster than gravity itself.
Before my hands meet the floor, his arm hooks around my waist.
He’s behind me, his mouth next to my ear. His cock presses between my ass cheeks, pulsing against me.
“Skylar.”
“W-what?”
“I’m going to fuck you.” Fuck sounds like a curse from him. Like longing. “Going to take what no man’s ever taken from you. Give you what no one’s ever gotten from me.”
At that last part, my thighs clench. Violently. I’ve never been territorial about anything. I’ve never been obsessed with owning something so completely.
Then there was Knox.
A muted thunk jolts me.
My eyes snap to my side, to the rope he’s dropped.
He feathers kisses over my skin, melting the tension in me. Eviscerating my fears. All of them.
“I should’ve waited for you to get better.” The words are spoken against my neck like a secret. “Can’t. And neither can you. You’re trembling because you’re thinking about my cock. About how I’m going to tear your pussy in half before I fill you up with my cum.”
Teasing him is no longer possible. I’m barely able to form a coherent response before the thinner rope is shoved between my teeth.
A bitter taste floods my mouth. The fact that my body stirs instead of recoiling brings tears to my eyes.
“Remember what I said.” He doesn’t waste time tying the rope behind my head. “Be good, Skylar.”
“No. No.” I resent the gag. I also want Knox now more than ever. “Don’t do it,” I murmur. I growl. “Not like this.”
“Exactly like this.” He’s rocking his hips into me, one hand on my breast, his fingers pinching my nipple.
“No.”
“Just like that. You’re beautiful.” His lips graze my shoulder. “Gagged.” His breath sears my skin. “Mine.”
“It’s wrong,” I say around the rope. “So wrong.”
“What’s wrong is you telling me no.” He rolls my nipple between his fingers, making a low, satisfied sound in the back of his throat. “You refusing me when I can enjoy you without interruptions. When they’re busy with Easton.”
They. His family.
That’s my last conscious thought. My logic vanishes when Knox releases my breast and cups my pussy.
Sensual. Feral. Dominating.
“Your moans.” Oh God, his finger is inside me. He groans as I squeeze him, pulling him in. “The sounds you’ll make. They’re mine. I won’t let anyone have them. Won’t let anyone have you.”
Terror thumps against my ribs.
The dark places he’s taking me to. The comforting weight of him.
My body recognizes his madness. I want all of it, every bit, for myself.
Even when I watch him lean forward to get something from the floor.
The thicker rope that looks like a leash.
I never imagined that this would be my life. That I’d be mumbling incoherent nothings into a gag.
That I wouldn’t be afraid of a leash about to be looped around my throat.
But it is my life. And though it’s sick and wrong, I’m done being scared. Done fighting this.
How can I, with him tilting his head like that, studying me from the side?
When he vibrates with something that feels a lot like hope, that I get it, that I understand him, I nod.
Because…yes. I do get it. Finally.
These ropes he’s brought with him aren’t meant to be restraints. They’re vows. That we’re going to be together forever. That we’re getting out of here.
With that in mind, I let him wrap the thicker one around me too. It slides around my throat, heating my skin.
I revel in his attention.
I trust him, and I’m proven right. When the rope presses lightly against my throat, Knox doesn’t choke me, even as I sense that he’s sitting up straight.
He’s claiming me without harming me. Putting enough pressure to remind me that I’m his without endangering my health for a single second.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
My eyes water, my ass stings from his sudden and unforgiving spanking.
Crack. Crack.
He keeps going. I don’t resist these either, no matter how bad it hurts.
I don’t ever want him to stop possessing me. Ever.
Because this isn’t about pain. The impact of his smacking makes me hotter. My nipples pull tight, my hips are restless, my body starving for friction.
He doesn’t stop giving me exactly what I want, pressing his cock between my thighs and spanking me.
I urge him to slide against my soaked skin by grinding my hips. Though he never pushes inside, the blunt head of his dick brushes my clit again and again, and I nearly lose it.
His hungry growl tethers me to him harder than the rope.
Eventually, when he draws back, my body tenses in anticipation.
The tip of him lines up to my sex, his wetness mixing with mine.
It’s that tease, that light touch, that has me whimpering. Breathless. So goddamn needy.
“Trouble, look at you.” He pulls on the rope, doing it with care. He’s devoted, even when he’s demanding to have all of me. “Drenched. God,”—crack—“your pussy is sucking me in. You’ve been waiting for me. Your whole fucking life.”
“I have.” My spit soaks the gag. My chin.