Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Run?
My heart flatlines. Then it bucks.
I stare into his eyes, searching for the man who told me he loved me five minutes ago. He’s gone, replaced by something wild. Ravenous. Full of bloodlust.
He rolls his shoulders, making the muscles ripple like a predator about to pounce.
Shivers skitter down my spine. This is just a game, right?
The hunger in his gaze says he’s not joking. I feel it in my gut, in the slick heat still dripping down my thighs. In the way my nervous system is screaming danger.
Rowland shifts forward, looming over me like a threat.
His pupils dilate, swallowing the brown until there’s nothing left but raw hunger.
It’s the same feral look from earlier, only now it’s got teeth.
His breaths turn ragged, his lips curling back in something that isn’t quite a smile.
It’s like a mask has slipped, and he’s no longer holding back.
Every instinct yells at me to escape.
“Wait.” I slide off the desk, my hands twitching toward his heaving chest. “What are you doing?”
“You have a count of ten to run, little pet.” His voice drops to a low growl. “When I catch you, I’ll split you into pieces.”
I back toward the door, every nerve in my body tingling. My skin prickles with goosebumps. “Oh, god.”
“God won’t save that sweet pussy,” he snarls, his words rolling through my senses like thunder. “But I will make you beg for salvation.”
Rowland advances toward me, his huge cock swinging like a broad sword. He moves like a hunter preparing for the kill. My stomach drops. My thighs clench. Something deep in my gut whispers that I’ve just made a terrible mistake.
What the hell do I really know about Rowland Rochester, apart from him being a wounded beast? I got so caught up in his story, I didn’t fully challenge his role in helping Edward trap the murdered women. Now, he’s turning that lethal attention on me.
I should run.
I should scream.
I should disappear.
Instead, I skitter backward, trembling and slick, caught between fear and desperate need.
“Ten,” he growls. Something in his voice tells me he isn’t playing.
Fuck.
I turn around and bolt out of Edward’s office.
My feet slap against the cold marble floor, breath tearing from my throat. I race through the hallway, past oil paintings of dead aristocrats who stare down like they know exactly what I’ve just unleashed.
“Nine.”
His voice follows me, and there’s something wrong with the tone. It’s far too calm, like he’s done this before.
I round the corner, my feet skidding on a pile of dust I must have missed while cleaning. My lungs burn. My legs scream with each step. The hallway stretches endlessly ahead, lined with locked doors that hide god knows what horrors.
“Eight.”
Shit. I sprint past the dining room, past the drawing room door and into the kitchen, my breasts bouncing with every stride. The back door crashes open under my hands, along with a gust of wind. Gritting my teeth, I burst out into the cold morning.
“Seven.”
I knock over a discarded wine bottle, but I don’t stop.
Can’t stop. Gravel crunches underfoot. I’m panting harder than a racehorse.
Every instinct warns that if I slow down, it’ll mean something terrible.
Sweat beads on my forehead despite the chill.
Blood tinges the back of my throat from breathing so hard.
“Six.”
My heart somersaults. I push harder, legs pumping. Each breath burns hot and raw. I glance over my shoulder. The garden blurs past. The house grows smaller, but I can feel him watching in the windows. Tracking my movement with deadly precision.
“Five.”
The orchard looms ahead, its trees heavy with red apples. I crash through tangled limbs, branches clawing at my skin. Rotting fruit litters the ground, sticky and sweet. The air reeks of decay and something older.
Cool wind blows in from the sea, chilling the outer layer of my skin. My body becomes slick with sweat and fear and the cum still leaking from my pussy. The trees close in behind me, swallowing the path. Everything smells overripe. Like things left to rot in the sun.
“Four.”
Oh shit.
What the hell?
I trip over a root, scrape my palm on rough bark, but I don’t stop.
Not with a potential maniac at my back. Not when he’s threatening to tear me to shreds.
I push harder, my lungs gasping for air.
The orchard seems to stretch forever, its branches reaching like skeletal fingers trying to drag me back.
My legs shake from the sprint. Every muscle burns with each step.
Copper floods my mouth, and my pulse roars at me to go faster.
I can’t hear him. Can’t see him. But I feel him on every hair on my body standing on end.
My skin buzzes with electricity, like he’s already here.
The silence is worse than his voice. But then most predators hunt without sound.
I sprint toward a row of tall trees looming at the orchard’s edge. My chest heaves and the blood pounding in my ears drowns out all sound. Every vein feels ready to rupture, and my heart beats like it might burst free.
“One,” says a cool voice from deep within the forest.
My heart stutters. What the hell happened to two and three? I whirl around, scanning the trees for movement. For a glimpse of his scarred flesh or wild hair. Everything’s so tightly packed that all I see are crawling shadows.
“Rowland?” I whisper.
No answer. Just rustling wind through the leaves and my own ragged gasps. Is he toying with me? Or am I going crazy?
The wind hisses through the branches, teasing the edges of my hair. I crouch low, listening for footsteps. For breath. For anything. But the woods are silent. Maybe he’s gone the other direction. Maybe I ran hard enough. Maybe I actually got away.
A hand slams over my mouth. An arm yanks me back against a wall of scarred muscle and heat. We fall hard to the ground, grass and dirt scraping my knees as his weight drives the air from my lungs.
“Caught you,” he growls into my ear and pushes me face-down into the dirt.
His breath is hot. Heavy. He smells like sweat and sex and a darkness that makes my stomach lurch. What happened to the man who needed me for courage? The man who declared his love?
I bite down on his fingers hard enough to draw blood.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t yank away his hand. He groans, guttural and low, the sound vibrating through my spine like a tuning fork set to chaos.
“I knew you’d bite,” he growls, his voice ragged.
My cry gets swallowed in the meat of his palm.
“Fuck, I love that sound,” he rasps against my neck. “You’re always the sweetest when you’re scared.”
I want to fight, but my body wants to stay. My mind shouts this isn’t right, but my traitorous pussy clenches around nothing. It’s hungry, obscene. I can’t believe my body’s response.
Rowland trails his fingers over my slit and growls, “Your greedy little cunt is dripping down my hand, begging me to fill it again and again. This is what you were made for. For me.”
Oh, fuck.
Before I can crawl away, his cock slams into my pussy. Hard. Brutal. With no easing in. Pleasure shoots up my spine, sparking along every nerve ending. I shriek once again into his hand.
“That’s it. Scream for me. Take every inch.”
The crazy bastard drives into me like a man possessed. My body jerks along the ground with the force of his thrusts, stretching around his impossible girth. His thrusts go harder, deeper, like he’s marking territory.
“You feel that? It’s your body recognizing its master. Taking me like any way I demand.”
“Rowland,” I say with a choked gasp.
“You’re. Mine.” He punctuates each word with a brutal snap of his hips. “Who. Do. You. Belong. To. Little. Pet?”
“Why?”
“You ran like prey,” he says, his teeth clamping down on my ear. “Now, I get to fuck you like a dog.”
He pounds into me from behind with punishing force, his larger body overpowering mine. I scream my throat raw, a deadly cocktail of ecstasy and terror. What made me think Rowland was noble? His imprisonment, his suffering? I’ve never met anyone so unhinged.
The moment I try to crawl away, he threads his fingers through my hair. “Did you think you could escape me, little prey?”
I thrash within the cage of his limbs, buck against his hard chest, but the power he has over me is absolute. “You’re insane.”
He growls. “And you’re about to discover what I do with my pets.”
Alarm crackles on the edge of my consciousness. What the hell happened to my Rowland? Where is the man who declared his love? Did I imagine him based on what I wanted to see?
“You’re so fucking tight. So wet,” he says through manic thrusts. “Tell me how much you need this cock.”
“Oh, shit… Fuck… Rowland.”
“Say it, or you don’t get to come.”
“I need. It. I need it. Give it to me, please!”
Just as I think he’ll play with my clit, he flips me onto my back and pins my arms over my head.
Rowland no longer looks human. He’s a mess of tangled hair, an unkempt beard, and eyes flashing with insanity. Sunlight shines through the trees, backlighting him like a halo. I blink away the glare, remembering something about Lucifer being a fallen angel. What the hell have I gotten myself into?
“You have such a beautiful neck. Such delicate veins. I’ve dreamed of possessing you like this.”
This isn’t love. This is hunger that’s lost its leash.
He wraps his free hand around my throat, fingers digging into the soft flesh of my neck until all I can feel is my pulse hammering against his palm.
“Rowland,” I say, my voice choked.
His grip tightens, cutting off my air.
My lungs spasm. I claw at his hands, dig my nails into his wrists hard enough to draw blood. I kick my heels into the ground and raise my hips, trying to get leverage. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t let up. His gaze bores into mine, determined to snuff out my life.
Spots dance on the edge of my vision. My throat fills with acid.
The grip around my neck tightens as he drives into me, each stroke relentless and deep. Each powerful snap of his hips makes my limbs twitch from the force of his movements. My pulse roars between my ears, blotting out the slick, obscene sounds of fucking.
He bares his teeth. “You’re mine. You belonged to me the moment you invited me in.”
My life flashes past like lightning. The old bedroom where Dad locked me up for being a sinner.
The church where Brother Matthew made me a child bride.
Him ordering Mom to inspect me for signs of pregnancy.
His house in flames. A blur of penthouses and hotel suites filled with worthless sugar daddies.
Then the abandoned brothel where I was forced to kill a cop.
I open my mouth to breathe again, but it sticks in my throat.
I buck, kick, try to twist free, but he keeps me pinned to the ground.
Leaf litter flies in all directions. My fingers spasm, tingling like they’re falling asleep.
My tongue goes numb. My lungs scream for mercy, while he fucks me like a demon dragging my soul straight to hell.
“Mine,” he growls, voice distorted into something dark. “Say it.”
I try. Can’t force out the words. Just rasp like I’m dying.
Panic blooms under my skin. I jerk my head back against the ground. He tightens his grip around my wrists and slams them back to the dirt. His other hand continues squeezing my neck until the world fades to a pinpoint of light.
Pressure in my head builds until my skull is about to crack. Blood rushes through my ears with a desperate ring. Darkness creeps in from the edges of my consciousness like spilled ink.
My pussy pulses and clenches around his cock with ravenous need. He groans, the sound rippling through every pleasure center. It’s horrifying, it’s sick. I can’t think past the need for air, but my body won’t stop convulsing.
Rowland is going to kill me. Maybe he’s the one who murdered all the others. Maybe both brothers are equally as corrupt. I made the same fucking error as always: thinking I could tell predator from protector.
His face hovers above mine, both beautiful and terrible. Eyes black with insanity. Mouth curved in a grin sharp enough to slit my throat.
And it will be the last thing I see.
This is it.
I’m dying.
And I made the mistake of inviting him in.