Captive Souls

Chapter 9

Nine

Piper

I woke to loud banging in the kitchen. It felt wrong, ringing against the tenderness of my skull. Fully rousing from my slumber, my limbs burned with an urgent aching, likely from the surge of chemicals and fear hormones that I’d been pushing into them to keep them going, crashing now that I was at my weakest, showing me how severely I’d been abusing my body.

It was dark outside.

The passage of time was murky to me, but I’d begun my run in the morning. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious initially, but it couldn’t have been that long. Then …

Shame washed over me.

After Knox and I had had that strange conversation where I could’ve sworn I saw emotion, desire on his attractive face, he’d left. And I’d … pleasured myself on this very sofa. Where he slept.

After I’d almost killed myself from running miles with no nutrition. After Knox had almost starved me, all while having food that could’ve avoided the entire situation.

Humiliation ate away at my already aching muscles. It was one thing to be attracted to my captor—something I’d need years of therapy to work through—but it was quite another thing to act on it.

No, I didn’t throw myself at him, but the act of pleasuring myself, thinking of him in a spot where he could’ve walked in at any moment— wanting him to walk in at any moment—that was going too far.

My mind flashed back to The Devil card and its urging me to embrace my shadows, my sexuality, but also reminding me that doing so could destroy me.

The clanging sounds continued as my indignity spiraled.

He was in the kitchen, that much was clear.

How long he’d been in there was anyone’s guess.

A burst of horror squeezed my lungs.

What if he’d come in when I was…?

No. Even with my extremely questionable survival instincts and my dulled senses from injury and masturbation, I would’ve noticed a killer in my midst.

Surely.

No. He hadn’t seen me.

But I’d done it. And I absolutely couldn’t do it again.

Masturbation was healthy and normal; I believed every adult should regularly indulge in self-love, using whatever fantasies got them going. But that should be done in the privacy of their own home, not in a cabin in the woods while being held hostage until they agreed to marry a murderous mob boss.

A pang of panic and thick homesickness clutched my stomach.

Would I ever be home again? In my warm, chaotic, messy apartment that held all of my memories, an entire life that I’d treasured?

Never in my life had I felt so hopeless. And that was saying something since I’d lived a far from charmed life.

But I’d always, always had hope. Even if it was just a small shred of it shining in the darkness.

In the cabin, despite the soft lamplight in the corner, there was only bleakness and despair.

I angrily wiped away the single tear trailing down my cheek.

It took a lot of effort, both mental and physical, to get myself up off the sofa. My legs were shockingly unsteady, as if I’d been lying in a coma for weeks instead of napping the day away.

My bladder urged to be emptied, so I made my way toward the bathroom, planning on ignoring Knox completely. For the rest of our time together.

A dark form emerged in my path just before the bathroom door.

Since I’d been so intently not focusing on him, he’d been able to catch me off guard.

Coward that I was, I couldn’t lift my eyes to look at him in the face. Not out of fear. Out of shame. I was convinced I was wearing some kind of brand, a scarlet letter from what I’d done on his makeshift bed, and he’d be able to see it, figure out what I’d done.

Then he’d find a way to use that to break me.

That was his sole intention, after all.

He wasn’t interested in me. There was no way he felt the spark between us. In order to feel a spark, you had to be capable of warmth. Possess human emotion. Neither of those applied to him. Whatever vision I’d had of him was conjured by my mind, having watched too many movies, read too many books, had too many fanciful notions about the inherent goodness of the human race. I’d spent my time around kindergarteners, letting the purity of their innocence sink in to remind me that everyone had been a child once, that everyone deserved a chance at redemption.

Not Knox.

“You shouldn’t be up.”

His cold tone slithered against my clammy skin, cooling it. Caressing it.

“You shouldn’t be telling me what to do,” I told his chest.

It was a nice chest. He was wearing yet another of his high-quality, outdoor shirts. Black. Long sleeves again. It hit me that I’d never seen his arms exposed, even on the overly warm days we’d been having. He always donned black, long-sleeved shirts. Though he never showed that he was uncomfortably hot. It made sense since he was cold as ice.

“You need to go back and sit down.” As usual, his voice told me he was unencumbered by my snark.

Why would he be? He was used to far more than snark.

I was forever reminded that I didn’t have the tools to go up against him.

“Again, I’m not doing what you tell me to,” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest and glaring at his defined pecs.

My fingertips itched with the need to rip at it, pull his skin apart, make him bleed.

“I’ll carry you back there if I need to.” The threat was barely audible yet uttered in an ironclad tone.

Finally, I found the courage to glare at him in the eyes. The expression on his face trapped the air in my windpipe. It was as blank as his tone… at first glance. But I could’ve sworn there was something different about the way he was looking at me.

I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, though. The slight flaring of the nostrils, the tenseness of his shoulders, the way his vein pulsated in his neck.

Did it speak of fury?

Or something else?

“You try to lay a finger on me, I’ll claw your face off,” I promised. “Mark that pretty skin of yours.”

I used pretty on purpose. Men like him—toxic, alpha types—would see pretty as a direct affront to their masculinity.

Instead of reacting the way I expected, the corner of his mouth twitched in what could almost be described as a smirk.

“I’m not afraid of your marks on my skin, Piper.”

There! A flash of heat. Want. I was sure of it.

My intestines plunged toward the floor, and that wantonness I thought I’d assuaged came back with the heat of a thousand suns.

I struggled to keep my composure. What would he do if I jumped on him right now? If I plastered my lips on his and climbed him like a tree? It was so taboo, so wrong, so tempting to give in to base desires when there was no one watching, where I felt free from the shackles of any civilized arrangements.

That’s why I was there, wasn’t it? Stripped away from all semblances of appearance that our world operated under law and order. That I was safe.

It had been proven. I was not safe. Not even while running in broad daylight. Not while attending my sister’s birthday party.

And wasn’t I sick of living with that fear? Running from it? Yet when that fear was embodied in Knox, I wanted to sink into it, indulge in it.

Then my bladder alerted me to other baser needs my body required.

Thankfully.

“I need to pee.” I was still looking into lifeless eyes that mercifully couldn’t read my mind.

Knox blinked at my words but didn’t step aside. He just stood there. Staring. I resisted the urge to shift my weight from foot to foot.

My bladder clenched uncomfortably, but I resolved to stand my ground. I wasn’t going to beg him to move, nor was I going to release my bladder in front of him—even though the need was quite urgent.

There it was, another power play. Him showing he was in charge of my every need, that he could stop me from the basic act of relieving myself with dignity. More white-hot hatred melted away whatever insane salacity I was feeling moments ago. The rapidly changing, visceral feelings were giving me heartburn.

I was not prone to wild mood swings or emotions. I left that to my sister. My job was to be around a bunch of unregulated kindergarteners all day. And though I was paid to teach them, those children really just needed a stable, emotionally regulated adult in order to feel safe. I prided myself on having that ability—not born from my job but certainly honed by it. I’d forced myself to be emotionally stable amidst a terribly unsettling home life. I’d had to when I took it upon myself to take care of my sister, show her that chaos was not everywhere. That peace existed.

Yet there, in the cabin, Knox teased the chaotic darkness out of me with an expert hand. In his presence, peace was nothing but a concept floating in the wind.

Finally, fortunately, he stepped aside.

Again, I resisted the urge to run to the toilet.

Straightening my spine, I looked him square in the face. “You are not as powerful as you think you are.” I was completely bluffing and likely laughable to him, but I needed something borderline threatening to say.

Then I calmly walked the handful of steps to the bathroom, noisily closing the door behind me.

Knox

I’d been physically unable to move while staring at her. Her features were etched with need. Now that I knew what she looked like at the peak of orgasm, I could recognize small markers. The way her plump lips separated, the way her cheeks flushed with color, the spark in her eyes. Her small hands clenching and unclenching. All of it told me she was again thinking of whatever she had been thinking about earlier.

Me, perhaps?

By process of deduction, it was me who was eliciting this response in her.

I was no stranger to women finding me attractive. I knew, upon first glance, I could be construed that way. But when given more than a first glance, women usually found what was lurking underneath. The uncanny valley effect kicked in. They couldn’t put their finger on it, but their instincts told them that I wasn’t quite human and that they needed to run.

A small few did not listen to instinct, were romanced by the idea that I was inhuman, thanks to idiotic popular culture of women romanticizing killers. But I soon set that straight. There was nothing romantic about me.

No one had seen my true nature, the demon beneath, and found anything attractive about that wretched, evil beast.

There was obviously some trauma at play. Stockholm syndrome. Or Piper was shockingly calculated and much more adept at fooling me than I’d ever imagined. Which, if that was the case, only made her more fucking attractive.

But my instincts told me that it wasn’t an act. That Piper was having a visceral reaction to me that she was fighting with her own body.

I knew this only because I was fighting against my molecules, every cell in my body telling me to claim her.

Not just to claim her but to … take care of her .

I’d never taken care of anyone in my life. Never wanted to. Hadn’t even cared about anyone beyond my brother. And the way I showed that was by keeping my distance, only appearing when he needed a villain.

Piper didn’t need a villain. She needed a hero. One to save her from me. But there was no one walking this earth strong enough to go to battle against me.

Except herself. She was the only one who could save herself from me.

Once Piper was in the bathroom, I returned to the stove. She’d devoured the plate of rice and beans earlier, and it had been hours since she ate that. She needed more calories.

She needed her health if she was going to fight. Fight me.

Because I was starting to understand that I wasn’t strong enough to fight against her.

And if she gave up, we were both doomed.

Piper

I decided to take a shower after relieving myself. I was still coated in dried sweat from the run, from desire, plus dirt and blood. I needed to wash it all away. Magic it away. And water cleansed. I could close my eyes and will it to. For the water to wash away the things that didn’t serve me. Enchantments I was under that weren’t safe.

The warm spray did nothing for my tense muscles, and it was only after I got in that I realized I hadn’t brought in clean clothes.

The cabin had a washing machine and a clothing line I had planned on using since I was down to one last pair of clean underwear—though I could’ve sworn I should’ve had two. But I’d packed under duress, so it’s not like I was a reliable narrator when it came to cataloguing my underthings.

I could’ve put my dirty clothes and underwear on, but I already felt dirty enough, even after my shower. I’d been unable to instill it with any magic.

I wanted my clean clothes, and the towel I wrapped around my naked body covered me more than some of the dresses I’d worn before. And if I was honest with myself, some naughty, devious part of me liked the idea of walking out there in a towel. Testing Knox, coaxing that intensity out of him. And out of me.

My hatred of him and his cruelty weren’t enough to make me stop wanting him. He was playing games, wasn’t he? In order to break me. He was starving me when food was within reach. His very presence was a game.

And he was starving too. Starving for me. I’d seen it in his small lapses in control. And I got an inkling that he wasn’t the kind of man to feel a hunger like this. That whatever was between us was novel to him too.

Turnabout was fair play.

So taking a deep breath while giving myself a mental pep talk, I walked out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around me.

The towel itself wasn’t a thick, large bath sheet like I was used to. The one indulgence in my life was expensive linens and towels.

This was a cheap towel, barely large enough to cover my torso and butt. But it did. Barely. It helped that the butt in question had shrunk somewhat during the past week.

Regardless, I was still exposing a lot of skin, and it was the suggestion that I was entirely naked under the thin piece of fabric that I hoped would serve to do something to the man made of stone and darkness.

Walking through the main room of the cabin, I didn’t look at him. I made it my mission to walk slowly, confidently, as if doing this wasn’t making my stomach pitch and my skin prickle with nerves and excitement.

My romantic life had always been very vanilla, very civilized, no games, no hard to get, no fuckboys. I specifically chose men who called when they said they would, had manners and didn’t play games with me. Who wouldn’t threaten or stalk me when I broke things off. Although it was increasingly hard to pinpoint which man would do that. Up until that point, I’d been lucky with the men I chose.

Safe.

Boring.

That’s what I thought my kink was. I’d lived my formative years under the whims of an unstable and violent man, never knowing if he was going to hug me or hurt me.

The uncertainty and the constant state of fight-or-flight was what I was healing by going for the safe men.

Or so I’d thought.

I’d deprived myself, starved certain parts of myself that I kept hidden. Because despite all the wrought emotions around my current situation, the core part of me was … excited as I walked through the room with my captor, naked and wet.

Though I hadn’t peeked in his direction, I swore he was looking at me. I could feel the weight of his gaze and the physical brunt of it even though I’d never truly ‘felt’ someone looking at me.

Maybe I wouldn’t be able to feel a regular person gazing at me, but when that person was Knox, it was as if I could feel his very thoughts about me.

It took everything I had not to peer in the direction of the kitchen, where all sounds of cooking had ceased.

Instead, I went to my bag, bending at the hip instead of crouching down to get my clothes and underwear.

That hadn’t been in the previous plan. Yes, I’d wanted to tease him. I’d wanted to establish some kind of sexual, feminine power, but I hadn’t intended on flashing that sexual, feminine power.

But it was what my body commanded. The dark, lustful voice inside of me that had been silenced without my even knowing it.

And without self-consciousness or doubt, I just did it.

Bared my naked pussy to him.

I didn’t imagine the swift intake of breath I heard from across the room.

He had been watching me.

My hunch was proved by the sound of his gasp. The sound of him losing control, the tightly wound man coming undone at the appearance of a vagina.

He wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last. I smiled to myself in victory as I grabbed my clothes, straightened and turned.

Then I let out my own swift intake of breath.

He was still standing, watching me. He was holding a knife. He’d obviously been in the middle of cutting something for dinner. But Knox, all in black, clutching the knife while staring at me like he’d stepped out of a nightmare stole the air from my lungs.

Except the expression on his face... It was not just deadly. It was the picture of masculine need unlike anything I’d ever glimpsed in my life. I’d stood naked in front of men, lovers. Had felt their appreciation for my form, sure.

But nothing like the way Knox was looking at me.

It wasn’t like he wanted to worship me.

It was like he wanted to ruin me.

My breathing quickened as I clutched at my clothes, instantly regretting my decision, chastising my previous boldness.

The moment lasted longer than it should’ve. Much longer. It was charged with an uncertain energy. What would happen next? The silence in the room seemed to boom with tension. I could hear his breathing. Fractured. Unsteady. Nothing that denoted his trademark control.

Knox was still holding the knife. He was a killer, he wasn’t quite hinged, that was clear. And I was pushing him. Pushing him toward an edge I didn’t even understand. I thought he simply desired me, and the ‘worst’ possible outcome of my teasing him was him acting on that desire.

Even though that’s what that secret part of me craved all along.

I’d never considered just how fucked-up Knox might’ve been. That I could be coaxing a wild animal out of its cage, not knowing whether it was going to fuck me or kill me.

Knox didn’t seem like he knew whether he was going to fuck me or kill me either.

For a long moment, my life hung in the balance. I swore I felt it. The whisper of death that could come at the hands of a man I both despised and craved. And insanely, I wanted to risk it. I wanted to drop the towel and invite him closer.

I was seconds away from doing it, caught up in the madness of the moment, a wild animal of my own unleashed and eager to play.

Milliseconds before I did it, Knox moved.

Not toward me like I’d expected.

No, back to the kitchen. He walked slowly, his steps measured and rigid, as if he were made of stone or metal. His gestures were almost robotic as he chopped whatever he was using the knife for. But I knew the clang of the knife against the cutting board was harder than it needed to be, as if he were letting out just a whisper of the violence he possessed.

The violence I was courting. Willingly.

Anxiety bubbling inside of me, I rushed to the bathroom to dress, flattening myself against the door the moment I closed it.

My heart was galloping against my heaving chest, my breathing as rapid as if I’d run a marathon.

My nipples were peaked, my core throbbing with need even though I’d realized what a mistake that was. My mind understood the stakes, my body did not. Or maybe it did, and that’s what made it respond in such a way. A way that felt panic-inducing, like I couldn’t trust what I might do moment to moment. Like another version of me was taking control over my body and I was powerless to stop her.

That version urged me to find relief between my legs. To do it loudly, loudly enough for Knox to hear.

My fingers itched to do that.

But I fisted my hand.

“No,” I whispered out loud to myself. It couldn’t have been healthy, talking to another version of myself. But it wasn’t healthy trying to seduce a psychopath either, so I was obviously fucked either way.

No pun intended.

With great difficulty, I dressed. And as I was doing it, I folded up that interaction. I did it tightly and with precision I’d learned from years of therapy. I put it far in the back of my mind then closed the door.

It was the only way I could walk back into the room with him without shrinking in embarrassment. And unfortunately, I couldn’t very well stay in this bathroom all night.

I had to go back out there as if I wasn’t profoundly affected by our moment. As if I didn’t feel changed forever.

I hadn’t wanted to talk to him during dinner, but giving the silent treatment had never really been my thing. Whenever I’d fought with men in the past, I had always promised myself a period of stonewalling—before I learned in therapy how toxic such a thing was—yet always, always lasted less than an hour, unable to hold on to a grudge, desperate to repair the chasm between us and desperate to be wanted. Desperate to be in a healthy relationship, feel safe and secure. Not that I’d ever really had a relationship. I always ran before things got too serious.

In the cabin with Knox, it was actually a good thing to engage in toxic behavior, fighting fire with fire and all that. I was not under any pressure to feel safe and secure with him, such a thing was impossible. There was no relationship to preserve, to nurture.

Therefore, the charged silence should’ve been my victory. I could feel it, like a crackle in the air, the sexual tension I’d poked at. His grip on his cutlery was tight, his shoulders taut and his movements stilted, as if he was forcing himself to be still and calm.

Yes, I’d affected him.

Points to me. To what end, I didn’t know. Weaken him in order to manipulate him into saving me? No, I wasn’t that calculated, and Knox wasn’t the kind of man who would save me. Ever.

Did I just want to torture him a little? Or did I really want to act on this forbidden carnality?

If I was asked out loud, by an outside party who was witnessing this, I would obviously say the former. It was only fair to use whatever wiles I had to torture my captor. But in my heart of hearts, I knew that wasn’t entirely the case. I wanted him. My darker side, the side of me that had been starved and denied, was only growing stronger, hungrier in his presence. I’d been so sure my childhood had beaten out any allure dangerous men might’ve had. But instead, I’d just stifled those feelings and ignored them, only for them to come bursting out of my captive soul.

Which was what I was battling with as I forced the food into my mouth. I needed the calories. I had a lot of strength to replenish. And it was good. Flavorful. He had a talent in the kitchen, especially while working with canned food and dried spices.

A little tidbit of information which was at odds with the image of him being a cold psychopath. But then again, just because someone was a psychopath didn’t mean that they couldn’t also be a good cook.

Not only was I battling the arousal I felt in the air but I was simultaneously struggling with the act of eating the food he prepared under his watchful eye. If his intention was to simply fatten me back up like a pig to the slaughter, he could’ve dumped a tin of beans in front of me and commanded me to eat.

I would’ve done it too, now that I’d brushed against the familiar feel of starvation, after hovering much too close to the abyss of death. Would I have eaten meat if he had forced it upon me after waking up? I didn’t want to answer that question.

He could’ve done it, served it up to me and taken the win by breaking me just a little. Instead, he’d made me the beans, tended to my injuries.

And now he was doing it again.

Mulling over all of that took up a decent amount of time from dinner. But I was not an overly interior person. I wasn’t used to going so long without speaking. I worked with children all day who constantly asked questions, helping them develop their language skills. There was barely ever a moment when I was silent.

When I was at home alone, I was usually speaking to my sister or singing to music. Otherwise, I was out with friends.

Silence was not a familiar companion of mine.

“How did you come to work for Stone?” I asked, looking up from my plate.

I could’ve asked a safer question, his favorite movie or color, perhaps. Pretending we were on a bad first date, skirting past the elephant in the room. But that wasn’t possible for me. The elephant was not an elephant but a huge, black shadow, corporal and oppressing, stifling the life from me.

“I’m curious as to what happens in a person’s life to result in them working for a mob boss, doing his dirty work,” I continued, no bite to my tone.

Half of me didn’t expect an answer. Knox didn’t have the same trouble keeping silence intact as I did. He seemed to despise the human practice of conversation. Or at least with me. Though I found it hard to envision him discussing normal things with anyone.

“Why did something have to happen in my life?” he asked, his voice smooth as silk. “Can’t I just be evil?”

His response caught me off guard. There was no teasing or sarcasm in it, just a note of truth. Did he truly consider himself to be evil? And if he did, then I doubted he truly was. Evil people weren’t aware of their wretchedness. More often, they were puffed up with their own importance or convinced they were the hero.

I put down my knife and fork to answer his question.

“No.” He shook his head before I had the chance to. “You eat and talk.”

I pursed my lips against the command, tempted to fight against it. But the prospect of conversation with him was more important than holding on to the facade of my sovereignty in this situation.

Dutifully, I loaded up my fork with tomatoey lentils and rice then put it in my mouth. I felt Knox’s eyes on me the entire time.

It felt intimate, the way he watched me eat. Possessive.

“No one can just be evil,” I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Maybe a small portion of the population, but I think that’s a farce more than anything. Evil, if such a thing exists, is made. Created. Situations continually push someone into less and less desirable circumstances until they commit more heinous acts, justifying them until they don’t feel the need to do that anymore because they consider their acts to be a reflection of who they are now instead of things they do.” The words spilled out of me, things I’d been marinating on my entire life while desperate to find explanations to my parents’ behavior.

Knox had been impassively, coldly watching me before I spoke, but something in his eyes changed when I finished. His jaw slackened just a little, and the force of his attention no longer felt entirely cold and predatory.

Then he recovered, his mask slipping back on.

That’s what I was becoming sure it was. A mask. There was a human underneath there. Who’d endured trauma. A human with wants. Needs.

Me. I was one of his needs.

I felt somewhat powerful that this seemingly controlled man was beginning to unravel out of want for me. Or perhaps that was a story I was telling myself.

“You have too much sympathy for assholes,” he said matter-of-factly. Coldly. “They don’t deserve it.”

I tilted my head to regard him. “Or maybe they need it most of all.”

He didn’t reply. I didn’t expect him to.

“What prompted you to work for Stone?” I repeated my question, a daring thing to do as I felt myself dancing with his cruelty, bracing for the verbal snap of it. I waited for a threat, a reminder of my place in the world as his helpless captive.

I watched him consume a mouthful of food. He was polite in how he ate, had good table manners. Chewed with a closed mouth, the column of his throat moving pleasingly as he swallowed. My gaze dipped down to his chest, following the movement.

“I went to work for Stone because I wanted to.” At the sound of his words, my eyes snapped up to his. Dark, endless. “He didn’t trick me, blackmail me or control me into my role. Nor am I a mindless goon following orders out of fear. I’ll work for him for as long as this role aligns with my needs.”

“What are your needs?” I asked without thinking. An innate instinct in me wanted to know them so I could meet them. I wanted to take care of this man. Save him. No reason for this existed beyond the inescapable thread tightening between us. He was giving me proverbial crumbs to prove it existed, yet I was feasting on them.

His gaze never let go of mine. “Death,” he said simply. “I need to kill people, Piper, in order to survive. There is no justifying my acts. And despite what your armchair analysis says, I am my acts. I kill because I am a killer. There is nothing deeper than that.”

He was trying to scare me.

And it was working.

But I’d known he was a killer for a long time. It was impossible not to know that after just gazing upon the man. Something instinctual told you what he was.

Yes, hearing him say it out loud was unnerving, but not as much as it should’ve been.

He’d said it in large part because he believed it. He was sure of what he was. There was conviction in his tone, grim resignation etched into every one of his features. But he also wanted to push me backward, back into our defined roles of captor and captive.

Instead, I pressed on.

“I think there is a lot more depth to you than just that,” I countered, my voice quiet, almost a whisper.

I held my breath, waiting for him to breathe fire. But he leaned forward imperceptivity. In our dynamic, the simple change in his posture was as mighty as a mountain moving.

“Why?” he asked, his low tone mirroring mine.

When I chewed my lip, his gaze followed the motion, hunger clouding his vision, pupils dilating slightly.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Because I can see it.”

The air between us changed. I swore it did. I could feel our roles warping, transforming. I was no longer his captor, a job, some abstract person that he was to break then deliver to his boss for a lifetime of torture.

I was a person to him. And maybe … I was something more. Of that I was certain.

He grasped my wrist.

The speed in which his hand moved was almost unnatural. I hadn’t been prepared for it. The conversation had been intense, but he was guarded, keeping his distance.

The man from moments ago was gone.

“You think you can unnerve me with a pretty cunt, Piper?” Despite the obvious violence of his grip and the crass words, his tone remained measured. His thumb stroked my wrist, right above my thundering pulse point. “You think that’ll save you? Throwing yourself at me? It won’t. This is the only warning you get. The next time you flash that at me, I won’t be restrained. I’ll take you in all the ways you’re begging for, and you’ll be so far beyond saving you’ll regret it.”

When he let my hand go, it felt so heavy it clanked onto my plate with the clutter of my silverware.

He went back to eating as if he hadn’t just said all of those earth-shattering, threatening, despisable yet somehow intensely delicious things.

There wasn’t a tremble to a single one of his fingers. Whereas my entire hand fumbled as I tried to mimic him by going back to my meal to prove that he hadn’t unnerved me.

That he hadn’t made me want to rip all of my clothes off, present myself to him in a dare to take me.

Swallowing food that was suddenly tasteless, I ate the rest of the meal in silence, unable to trust my instincts, my needs, the very air around me.

Knox was breaking me.

Just not in the way he’d intended.