19. Asch
ASCH
I don’t know how I let her get under my skin.
I should’ve known better than to let myself be lured in by her taunts, but they have me seeing red. It would be one thing if she was taunting me, but adding Blaze into the mix?
No.
I’m not willing to let her fuck with him.
If she wants someone to play with, she can turn her attention to me. I’ll make her understand what a terrible fucking idea it is to play with men who would as soon fuck her as destroy her.
Zayden tries to call out to me, but I storm past him, gripping Pandora’s slim wrist tightly and practically dragging her up the stairs of the frat house.
“Whoa, hold up!” she says, but she’s laughing too.
She won’t be laughing when I’m done with her.
I ignore the door to my own bedroom. I’m already on a hair trigger, and having her see my private space and mock me would send me over the edge. Better to take her back to Blaze’s, where we have privacy and a clean backdrop for what I plan to do with her .
The fact that it’s Blaze’s space I’ll be fucking her in also makes a difference in this.
I’m still pissed at him for trying to shut me out.
He’s already had her; it’s my turn to take her, to punish her, to hurt her.
I toss her onto Blaze’s bed, and any other woman would have cried out or tried to scramble away, but Pandora giggles and stretches out.
“Nice,” she says, smiling at me. “Are you going to leave the soiled sheets for Blaze to clean up?”
“Just how soiled they’re going to be depends on you,” I tell her, fighting back a strange mix of desire and disgust. “Give me your knife, Pandora.”
I’m not Blaze, who keeps underestimating her. Especially now that I know who she is — what she is — I’m not going to treat her like easy prey.
Pandora reaches into her jacket pocket. I wait, but instead of pulling out the knife, she closes her eyes and lets out a little sigh. I almost take a step back, expecting her to attack, but I force myself to remain where I am.
No matter how strong she is, she’s still a woman. I can overpower her.
“ Now , Pandora,” I snap. “Don’t make me frisk you for it.”
Her eyes fly open, and for a split second I see something darker, something wild , in her eyes. It isn’t the same easy amusement she’s been showing me, and I’m torn between arousal and unease.
“Fine, fine. Jeez, if River isn’t afraid of the knife, I don’t know why you are.” Pandora takes her hand out and reaches into the other pocket, pulling out the knife. She holds it up for me to see.
It’s a folded up karambit, and even from here I know it’s sharp and deadly.
I still remember how it felt slicing into my arm.
This isn’t some sorority girl’s play at self-defense. This is a real, lethal weapon carried by the daughter of the Pavone patriarch, and after that night, I’m willing to wager she knows how to use it.
I snatch it away from her. “I should show you how this feels cutting into your skin,” I tell her darkly, holding the knife more tightly in my hand.
“Oh, don’t hurt me,” Pandora says breathlessly. She drops an arm dramatically over her forehead. “Please, foul rogue, I beseech thee! Do not mark my skin, for my beloved would surely cast me aside!”
She laughs and starts pulling her hoodie off. “River or Blaze for the role of beloved? What do you think?”
I grab her by the throat, squeezing hard with one hand while I hold the folded-up blade in the other. “Leave Blaze out of this,” I hiss. “Play with your boytoy all you want, but Blaze is?—”
He’s mine .
The thought strikes me out of nowhere, but it’s true. No matter how many women we share, no matter what else happens… In the end, he is .
Pandora’s eyelids flutter, and she moans loudly despite my hand around her neck. “Then… then you should… put your money where your mouth is…”
I tug harshly at her hoodie, helping her pull it the rest of the way off, then stare down at the tank top she’s wearing beneath it.
I’m not patient enough to pull that off, too, so I flick the karambit open.
I’ve never actually used one, but it doesn’t take an expert to know how to cut something with it.
And cloth should be easy to slice open, if it had parted my skin with barely a cut.
I smile down at her. “Should I?” I ask, then draw the tip of the blade down the center of her tank top. I watch as the fabric slices open, revealing only a bra and unblemished skin beneath it.
She’s lucky I didn’t cut deeper, that blood isn’t seeping to the surface.
“Hey, hey!” Pandora protests. “I liked that shirt!” She glares. “If you cut up my shorts, I will turn that knife back on you. ”
“Then maybe you should get them off before I get any ideas,” I retort. Though the idea of cutting those off is an appealing one. She’d have to walk out of here in only her hoodie, and everyone would know what kind of whore she is.
Pandora scoots back and unbuttons her shorts. She has to stop to untie her combat boots, but I watch, knife in hand, as she strips completely naked.
My eyes rake over her body, taking it in, appreciating it. She might be insane, but she is beautiful. The curve of her breasts, the slender line of her waist, toned legs — she reminds me of a dangerous, deadly flower, so lovely to look at but ready to poison you at any given second.
So why am I fucking with her, ready to taste her, ready to see how poisonous she actually is?
Seeing her with Reaper had awoken something in me, something hot and vicious, and I’d wanted to snatch her hand away and give her something else entirely to touch. She doesn’t belong to him.
She belongs to…
To Blaze.
To me , an insidious little voice whispers in the back of my mind.
It doesn’t make any sense.
This isn’t the type of woman I usually go for.
I like nice women. Women who want study dates and enjoy flattery and smile when I pay them a simple compliment.
Pandora’s smiles hide something dark behind them, something less than sane.
No nice girl would wave a knife around like she does.
I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t want her.
“Do you know how to hold still, Pandora?” I say, climbing onto the bed. My voice echoes back in my ears, and I don’t even recognize myself.
“What happens if I don’t?” Pandora answers. There’s bruising on her neck from where my fingers had dug in.
There are also dark marks on her hips, from another man’s fingers. I lay one hand over the bruise and push down.
Pandora gasps and raises her hips into the touch.
“You’re sick,” I rasp.
What does it say about me that I want to leave more bruises like those, evoke more of those reactions, that I want to…
My fingers tighten around the karambit, and I lick my lips.
I’ve been wanting to repay her for so long for catching me off guard, humiliating me. I have the chance. I can slice her open with her own fucking knife.
I should do it.
She won’t stop me.
My hand is surprisingly steady as I draw the very tip of the blade along her collarbone. It leaves a thin red line, but barely any blood wells up to the surface.
Not yet.
Pandora watches me with those green eyes of hers, not a shred of fear in them.
If anything, there’s arousal, her mouth parting and her tongue darting out to lick her lips.
“Do you have the balls to do it?” she whispers.
“Do you have the balls to take it?” I retort, my breathing coming more heavily. “Or are you gonna run to the police like a little bitch?”
I’ve never done anything like this.
But I’ve fantasized about it.
Not with those nice girls, but in my darkest fantasies, the ones I never intended to act on.
I don’t want her to see my indecision.
Pandora grins widely. “I would never run to the pigs, Asch.” She reaches up and cups my jaw. “But I might run to Blaze, if you don’t fucking do something already.”
I jerk my head away from her, then stare down at her chest. I take the wickedly sharp curved blade, and I cut her, right over the swell of her breast .
This time, blood does bubble up to the surface almost immediately, and my breath catches as I watch.
Pandora lets out a breathy moan. “Oh! That’s good.” She drags her finger through the cut and smears the blood, then brings the finger up to her mouth to lick it clean.
I shudder.
I want to cut her again, but instead, I lean down, crushing my lips against hers in a kiss I’ve been denying myself. I pull away with a sharp inhalation, hating myself for having given in for even a moment, then I narrow my eyes as I stare back down at her chest.
Another cut, this time directly below her collarbone, and then it’s like an addiction, like something I couldn’t stop if I tried, as I leave inch-long slices over and over across her chest.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each time, the sounds she makes are damn near orgasmic, going straight to my cock.
“How many times have you done this before?” I demand, though my voice is hoarse. “Let someone cut you up, like they can’t just slit your throat when they’re done with you?”
Pandora wraps her hand around my wrist and drags it—and the knife—closer to her face. She kisses my hand, leaving a small, bloody lip print behind.
“No one has ever cut me up like this,” she says. “I’ve never let another person get a knife this close to me.”
I bark out a laugh of disbelief. “So you let someone who fucking hates you get near you with a sharp blade?”
She really is insane.
Why am I even more fascinated by her for it?
The tip of the knife is so close to her cheek, and it’s tempting to slice there, too, to leave a mark that everyone can easily see. But that brings its own difficulties, so I reluctantly pull back.
I’m not ready to be done with her yet.
I grind my clothed cock against her bare thigh, and I lick my lips, tasting her blood.
Blaze may have fucked her, but he didn’t get something like this .
“You don’t hate me,” Pandora answers, grinding up against my cock. “If you did, I wouldn’t be here.”