Beloved (Devil’s Playground #1)

Chapter 1

CONFESSIONS OF A FREE MAN

In a world where powerful, ruthless, and sadistic men ruled, women often became our obsessions. We craved what shouldn’t belong to us, insistent on claiming the beauty without fear of consequence. The way of our world.

I’d met and enjoyed my share of women in my life, long-legged beauties who provided soulless yet electric pleasure. When violence and bloodshed were daily practice, the hunt and capture leading to a pure, uncomplicated release was the only choice for soothing the demon living inside.

And normally, I considered women tools of the trade and nothing more.

Until she’d walked into my life.

She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, although meeting her only resulted in physical anguish. I’d known so many stunning women, yet her beauty was eternal, a gift from the very gods above that would never grace my presence.

Immediately, I’d longed to mark her unblemished porcelain skin with my hands, stripping away her vulnerability.

My thoughts had been disturbing, craving to fill her mind with aspects of filth while whispering in her delicate ear.

All before I’d defile her in the worst of ways, eager to make her come for me.

All for me.

Only for me.

The first time I’d seen her, she’d appeared as an illusion, a gift of dehydration and physical pain, her voluptuous body shimmering in the late afternoon sun.

The second she’d presented herself as an angel, defying both reality and the rules intertwined in our ugly lives. Her touch had been soft, inviting, her whispers of healing keeping me off center. Only then had I seen her eyes, reflections of a soul yet to be tarnished by heinous men like me.

Perhaps that was the moment the obsession had been born, a deep carnal need that never left, never allowed me peace.

I’d dreamt of her, wished for her, hungered in a way that would never fade.

The last time the angel had graced my presence had been the hardest, leaving a man with no heart, no soul, and no conscience with only blistering, vengeful rage.

Yet she and I would meet again as destiny was never wrong.

Only then she would learn the consequences for tempting the devil.