Captive Souls

Chapter 14

Fourteen

Knox

S omething had changed with Piper.

She’d let go of all pretenses she’d been trying to hold up, crossed the distance between us and made it clear of her feelings. Of her wants.

For me.

Even after I’d told her the truth. Exposed my ugly, rotting insides to revolt her.

But there was no revulsion. I should’ve expected that. Piper wasn’t capable of the cruelty it took to hear someone’s greatest sins and secrets and then shatter them while they’re most exposed.

That was my job.

If not that then surely me laying a hand on her sister, then laying my hands on her, especially after learning what a piece of shit her father was, should’ve swayed her. My fingers itched for my knife. I needed to release more blood to sate my need for punishment of that act.

I rarely regretted violence. Killing. The second you began regretting the souls you took was the second you were walking your own way to the grave. Regret was weakness. Too human.

But touching her sister—the five-foot-fucking-nothing ballerina Piper loved most in this world—was a sin I shouldn’t have committed. I wasn’t in control then. I’d seen red. I’d seen Piper lying lifeless on the floor.

And then I was across the room, choking the life out of her sister. To punish her for endangering what I held most precious.

It was dangerous. Deadly, even, that I didn’t have a hold on the beast inside me during those moments. It was another path to the grave. Piper was my greatest weakness. I was only just coming to terms with that.

My thoughts fractured as the door to the bathroom opened. Piper had been in there, cleaning up, getting ready for bed.

With me.

We hadn’t spoken on the walk back to the cabin. Hadn’t touched. But I still felt her all over my fucking insides. Her gentle tone like one an animal trainer might use to speak with a tiger that had gone feral.

Except I’d never been tame to begin with.

That’s what I was then. Tamed by this magnificent creature delicately padding on bare feet through the cabin that was meant to be her doom yet had turned into my salvation.

She was nervous. I could feel it in the air. See it in the way her body moved, the slight stutter in her step, the downward cast of her eyes, her teeth nibbling the soft flesh of her lips.

Those full lips I itched to feel moving over mine, the mouth I was desperate to claim. Yet those needs were clouded by something wrong, a buzz just under my skin, punishing me for having those needs, convincing me that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill hers.

The sheets smelled of her when I’d climbed into them. Floral, fruity, sweet with the faint spice of her sweat. A delicious combination, one I held on to as she traversed the short distance across the cabin.

Her eyes roved over me in the bed, and it took every ounce of control I had to stay still, to keep my expression free of any of the bubbling need that singed my skin.

It was a great effort not to explore the exposed skin of her legs in tiny sleep shorts that were basically panties, a tight camisole showing off peaked nipples that I couldn’t fucking stare at for a second longer or they’d be in my mouth, my teeth grazing them over the fabric.

No.

The voice was sharp in my mind.

Resist her.

I’d made the concession of sleeping in the bed because of the determined glint in Piper’s eyes when she’d declared I’d be sleeping in it, knowing she wouldn’t give up that fight. She was concerned for me. Wanted to take care of me. Never in my life had anyone wanted to take care of me. The feeling was overly warm, uncomfortable. My nature urged me to push her away, hurt her before she could get close enough to hurt me. Strike first, damage her as a warning to show her what happened when she thought she could get close to me.

Two of my baser instincts battled against each other as she climbed into the bed. One itched to claim her, bury myself deep inside her. The other sought to break her, hurt her in a way that would ruin whatever lay between us beyond salvaging.

It took all of my effort to lay still as the bed depressed, my body stiffening as her bare arm brushed across the sleeve of the shirt I was wearing.

I was fully dressed, ensuring my bare skin wouldn’t touch hers. Sully it.

I could feel the nerves radiating from her as we both lay there, staring at the ceiling, the closest we’d ever been. Though we were physically only inches apart, the depth of the emptiness inside of me formed a yawning distance between us.

She was also coiled with expectation, waiting. For something to happen between us. For me to cross the chasm and show her affection, prove I was capable of it. I imagined bringing her soft, pliant body into my arms, her head laying on my chest, burying my nose into her sweet-smelling hair. I imagined the honor of her feeling safe enough to sleep there, in the arms of a murderer. And she would. Trust me enough to lapse into a state of blissful unconsciousness

She’d give me that gift without hesitation.

The tension lingered between us, her breathing sparse and shallow, as if she was scared too deep of an inhale might spook me. Her hope was what did it, coming off her in waves, hope that I might be the man, underneath it all, to bring her into some sort of safe embrace.

With a sharp and uncomfortable sensation in my chest that had nothing to do with the gunshot wound, I turned my back on her and went to sleep.

Piper

It went on like that for a week.

It should’ve been nice. The truce we made, the truth we shared. The acknowledgement of what we were to each other. The redefining of our roles.

It should’ve been a relief.

Except I felt more on edge than I had since the moment I met Knox. Back then, there was fear, yes. Plenty of that. Anger too. At him for being the omen that signified the end of life as I knew it. He was the villain.

But there was a distance. There was a separation between us.

Now we were closer than I suspected a kidnapper and abductee ever had been. We’d shared our insides, our ugliness. He’d exposed parts of himself I knew had never seen the light of day.

My fingers had been in his flesh, sewing him back together. We slept in the same bed. We spent most of our days together. We ate together.

It was the closest I’d ever been with a man. With a person, for that matter, my sister included. Except the distance between us was wider than ever.

Though we slept in the same bed, we didn’t touch. Didn’t cuddle. Although it had been expressed that Knox wanted to have sex with me, nothing had been acted on. Not even a kiss.

A kiss seemed so pedestrian, so juvenile. Yet my lips burned with an unyielding need for him. To taste him. I didn’t act on it, not with the wall he’d hastily put up, not with the fear of rejection, heartbreak. I had to survive lingering on the sidelines, waiting for him to yank us both onto the proverbial playing field.

We were stuck in a kind of purgatory of our own making. It was utter torture. I was hyperaware of my every movement, every word I said, every gesture. Knox watched me like a hawk, his demeanor locked down tight. He’d gone back to speaking in monosyllabic tones and only when forced. No more admissions came from him. I didn’t think he had any left.

Me, I had a few, though. Secrets and scars still hidden deep.

My need for Knox was a living, hungry thing, desperate to consummate … whatever it was between us.

I had never been afraid to make the first move with men I wanted. Granted, those were never men I really wanted; they were men I talked myself into wanting because they were the appropriate choice.

Not a threat.

Knox was most definitely a threat. What if I reached out to touch him, and he crushed my hand? What if I gave myself over to him, and he crushed my heart?

So we danced awkwardly—or I should say, I danced awkwardly since there was nothing awkward about Knox. He was ever graceful in that predatory way of his. Never unsure. Never afraid.

But I could see it, the added tension he carried in his shoulders, the lines of his eyes. And though we didn’t cuddle in bed, I’d definitely brushed up against the length of him—by accident—and felt the full width and girth of his need.

He was still recovering from the gunshot wound. I had been worried about some kind of infection setting in, since our environment was not sterile, and I was most certainly not a doctor. He let me look at it daily, change the dressing and clean it out. But not with his shirt off. He would unbutton the top of the button-ups he’d now taken to wearing to expose the area to me, but nothing more.

It was as if he was hiding something from me. I didn’t know what. He was a muscular demigod—or devil, if we were going for that kind of metaphor. I knew his torso was carved with muscle because I saw the outline of it. Honed and chiseled to be a weapon, I considered him a work of art even clothed. He definitely didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

Then again, what he’d told me of his childhood—the one that was stolen from him—it could have been something related to that. To nakedness, feeling dirty or wrong.

I’d chewed over that for a long time. Sex very well could be a complicated thing for him. He’d never found pleasure in it, hadn’t he said that? From his perspective, perhaps there was nowhere for us to go from here. My need for him might not have been the same as his for me, and I wasn’t going to try to sate it if it damaged him even a little.

I’d been mulling over this yet again as I sat in the garden, watching the sun set.

Knox had been on a supply run earlier in the day and had forbade me from helping him with the bags. He’d done it rather meanly, if I was honest. Every interaction we had now had a brutal edge that hadn’t been there before. He’d been cold but never cruel. Now he cared about me enough to be cruel.

He didn’t want to accept help which would communicate that he was weak.

I rolled my eyes.

Men.

Even though he considered himself to be vastly different from the garden variety male, there were a lot of things that weren’t too different at all.

I stood, dusting dirt from my jeans, reasoning that he’d had sufficient time to do all the things he needed to do, without the help of a woman who would endanger his masculinity.

Plus, I was hungry, masculinity be damned. My stomach rumbled as I entered the cabin, and the delicious scent of whatever he was cooking invaded my senses. Mushrooms, onions, herbs. His cooking talents continued to impress and enchant me. Not once had he accepted my offer to cook. He hadn’t even responded to my offers, actually. He just gave me a withering glare then turned back to the stove.

Maybe it was a control thing. That’s what made the most sense given what I’d learned. But I had secretly liked to think of it being him wanting to take care of me in a way he was capable.

And my secret might’ve proved to be correct when I saw why he’d been so cagey about letting me help with anything from the supply run.

He’d been planning something. For me.

The bed had fresh sheets on it, crisp and dark-colored, inviting. Nothing like the old, threadbare sheets I’d been sharing with him the past week.

My intestines dropped to my feet, looking at that bed. At the singular meaning those sheets could’ve communicated. That something was going to happen between them.

My womb clenched at the very thought, nerves, fear and desire a fiery cocktail.

He could’ve just been sick of the sheets from before. He was a man who liked the finer things, if the quality of his clothing was anything to go by. But my intuition told me that wasn’t the reason. Not when combined with what he’d done to the rest of the cabin.

My eyes swept over the table, the vase of wildflowers in the middle of it, the food steaming on plates. Two glasses were full of red liquid, an expensive looking wine bottle sitting between them.

" You did this?” I asked, my voice breathy.

I felt as if I’d walked into a fever dream, a fantasy that was too impossible to be real. Could this be Knox … wooing me ?

“Woodland fairies sure as fuck didn’t,” he replied gruffly, puncturing through my soft thoughts like a serrated blade.

I chuckled at the hostile tone, directly at odds with the romantic gesture.

One I had never thought in a million years that Knox would be capable of. It might’ve been a simple, human, romantic gesture, cooking dinner for someone you were dating in the normal world. But I understood it was something pivotal for Knox. It was him wrestling against all his instincts, his coldness, his brutality, to do something nice for me. To show that he could do this. To show both me, and probably more importantly himself, that he was capable of this.

I fought very hard to keep the tears out of my eyes.

My feet carried themselves forward as I surveyed the plates, the glasses, biting my lip.

“I can’t drink that.” I nodded to the glass. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but I also needed to share the one piece of myself I’d been hiding. Not exactly on purpose, but I’d been holding back. Was it because I still considered it a weakness and didn’t want to show that to Knox? Was it because I was embarrassed? Or was it simply because we’d kind of had a lot going on, and there hadn’t been the right moment for it?

A mix of the three, most likely.

His expression didn’t change, but I could’ve sworn I saw something resembling ‘male panic’ in his eyes—my term for a kind of panic that was reserved for the man who inadvertently said his girlfriend looked fat, accidently admitted he thought another woman was attractive or forgot an anniversary.

That was the kind of flash I saw in Knox’s usually inexpressive eyes.

I found it incredibly endearing, and a sign that this man actually cared about me.

That even the villain was not immune to something as simple as male panic. Even brutes feared a woman insulted.

“If it’s the wrong kind of vintage—”

“It’s the perfect vintage, I’m sure,” I told him, cutting him off before he could spiral. Though an evil part of me wanted to watch that. Revel in something as human as rambling from him. But putting him out of his misery was kinder. And despite his penchant for cruelty to me, all I wanted to give him was kindness. To show him he couldn’t scare me off. “I’m just unable to enjoy it, since I’m sober. In recovery. Ten years.”

Knox stared at me. Clearly, I had managed to catch him by surprise. It was vaguely satisfying.

That satisfaction helped with the nerves I felt while exposing this last soft, vulnerable part of myself.

I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Something I should’ve shared before now, to be fair, since it’s something I like to drop on the first date, but we didn’t exactly date, did we? Unless you count dragging me out of Central Park against my will our first date.”

Knox’s expression remained that blank kind of shock, almost as if he didn’t know what to say. “You’re sober.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s the family curse. My mother, my aunt, my grandmother. Interestingly, the women in our family are the ones who kill themselves or ruin their lives with booze. Then again, it was the women in our family who had to shoulder nasty, violent men who all but caged them in the house to clean, cook and pop out children. Not that I had that excuse for my problem. I had plenty others, though.”

I’d been in the program long enough to poke fun at my faults, my addiction. It was the only way you got through. You carried the anvil of addiction long enough, you’d collapse under its weight. You had to find a way to make it light in order to survive. Or at least I did.

Most people tended to become slightly awkward or uncomfortable when I said I was sober, either doing everything they could not to ask questions or asking far too many. Neither overly bothered me; I knew people’s discomfort with my problem was a sign of something they were battling themselves.

I waited for Knox’s reaction, more curious than anything.

He stared at me for a few long moments before he took the two glasses and the bottle, moving to the sink where he promptly poured them down the drain before rinsing them with water.

I watched the whole thing, vaguely amused.

“That’s rather dramatic,” I told him when he turned. “I have the problem, not you. You can enjoy a glass, or a bottle of wine in front of me without feeling guilty.”

One moment Knox was at the sink, the next he was on me, his long legs crossing the distance between us in a few quick strides.

One of his hands clutched my hip, the other cupped my cheek. “Your problems are my problems, Piper.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but he was just so intense about it. And the intensity with which he spoke after a week of almost indifference socked me in the gut. “Not this one,” I whispered. “And it’s not a problem anymore. I can exist around alcohol; you can enjoy it.”

His grip tightened. “I can’t enjoy something that almost destroyed you.”

I smiled. “It didn’t almost destroy—”

“It did,” he said plainly. “I see past your mask, Piper. I know you. And I consider myself an expert in destruction. I see it. And no way in fuck do I care about booze more than you. You don’t drink, I don’t drink.”

My lips were sealed together tightly so he didn’t see them quiver. Not once had I required or expected anyone close to me to monitor the way they consumed alcohol. Sure, at first, I had to be careful who I spent time with. At the beginning, I couldn’t be around friends who maybe overindulged a little too often. But again, that was my problem, not theirs. Once I got a handle on it—as much as an addict can get a handle on their addiction. They called it ‘in recovery’ as opposed to ‘recovered’ for a reason. It was not a static state, it was a constant, evolving battle. Sometimes you didn’t even realize you were fighting it, other times you were doing it tooth and nail.

Once I felt secure in my sobriety, I was fine watching people enjoy drinking. My sister did it often, and though I was jealous of her being able to have a mimosa with breakfast and then switch to coffee without issue, I was glad she could indulge.

If Knox had sat across from me sipping what I was sure was an expensive bottle of wine, it wouldn’t have changed the way I thought about him. Wouldn’t change my feelings for him.

Though I recognized this as a vaguely toxic behavior, it only served to make me more attracted to him.

It was far too intense, far too codependent. Not healthy. But I found that I didn’t want healthy, stable. Not with Knox.

“I’m in … lust with my kidnapper.” I sucked my teeth. No way was I going to use the other four-letter word. It was too soon to say, to feel. “My therapist is going to have a field day with this.”

“You have a therapist?” Knox tilted his head to regard me, offering his curiosity freely. And I took it greedily like the gift it was.

It was an effort to keep an easy expression on my face, as if we were having some kind of regular conversation and this wasn’t changing the trajectory of my life and rearranging my insides. “I’m a thirty-year-old recovering alcoholic with a fucked-up childhood,” I told him with a smile. “I’m a self-care girlie too. And I know that actual self-care isn’t just bubble baths and face masks; it’s speaking to a professional and getting your head right…”

I inclined my head to regard him . “You haven’t gone to therapy?”

He gave me a blank look, or what I might’ve seen as a blank look had I not known him. I now knew how to read the smallest of tells. The slight twinkle in his eye, the twitch in his upper lip, the relaxing of his shoulders—all markers of his version of a smile. He was amused.

“Do I look like someone who has gone to therapy?” His tone was the same cool baritone as before, but I sensed only I would hear the lightness in the inflection, the teasing.

It felt like I was the only person who understood a secret language no one else in the world knew.

“Would you be very offended,” I whispered, barely able to fit the words inside the room, “if we didn’t eat the food that you’ve likely outdone yourself with?”

Knox’s eyes flared as he caught on to my meaning, hearing the hungry lilt to my tone.

“I would not be offended in the slightest,” he growled.

A beat thrummed between us.

And then there was a burst, a snapping of that taut tension coiled around the both of us.

Who moved first?

It was me.

It was me who surged forward. If I hadn’t, would he have?

No, I knew the answer to that. If I hadn’t made a move, he would’ve stayed, simmering with a palpable lust but never acting on it. Partly because of his trauma but also because he didn’t want to tarnish me. He wanted to protect me from himself.

It was that knowledge that made him all the more irresistible to me. He thought himself to be beyond redemption, but the darkest of souls would’ve taken me long ago, regardless of whether or not I was willing, uncaring of how they would ruin me.

Though he was resisting me, that didn’t mean he didn’t respond the second my lips crashed onto his.

One of his hands tore into my hair, plastering our mouths tighter together. The other went to my ass, pressing our bodies flush, as if he wanted to meld us together.

His erection pressed into my stomach, large, probing.

I lost myself in the kiss, gasping at the coppery taste of blood entering my mouth that followed a sharp burst of pain as his teeth sank into my lip.

“I’m not going to do this without pain, blood,” he warned, his voice thick. He held me tight enough to hurt to prove his point. “I don’t know how else to be.”

“I don’t want you to be anyone else.” I leaned forward to lick a trickle of my blood that was staining his lip. “I want this to hurt.”

My admission shocked even me. I’d never been into any kind of kink. I was convinced that I wanted tender, soft lovemaking.

Vanilla.

But that had never satisfied me. Deep down, I hungered for something darker, more forbidden. But I’d swallowed those needs because of my past, because of my complicated relationship with violent men.

Indecision was clear in Knox’s eyes, as if he were thinking that very thought. His hesitation stung my skin as if he’d slapped me.

“I’m not a victim,” I snarled at him. “Don’t treat me like one.”

That was enough to jerk him out of his stupor. He yanked me forward again, only kissing this time, no biting. But that didn’t make it any less violent. There was no room to catalogue the kiss as anything but carnal. There was nothing romantic, soft about it. Not that I’d expected that from Knox.

I wanted real. Wanted to feel the utter brutality, the uncontrollable need he had for me.

His hands fisted my hair, wrenching on it to expose my neck before his teeth grazed my carotid artery. I shuddered at my vulnerable position. Exposing my neck to a predator was submission, wasn’t it? Trust?

Not that he gave me a choice.

He just took.

And that’s what I wanted.

His lips replaced his teeth along my pulse.

And then he was stepping back, only slightly. Just enough to send a groan of frustration through me.

His eyes glowed with feral need, but his face was an emotionless mask.

“Take off your clothes,” he said impassively. The words hit me in the throat.

His order was sharp. No warmth or adornment from him.

But I reveled in the command, in knowing that Knox was going to take the helm, and I could let go of coherent thought and just obey.

Which is what I did.

With shaking hands, I tore off my T-shirt.

“Slower.” The word cut through the air.

With great pains, I did as he said, slowing my movements as I unbuttoned my jeans then stepped out of them, all under the power of his intense eyes.

He didn’t even bat a lash.

Nor did he speak.

It should’ve been awkward. Slowly undressing in front of a man with nothing but my roaring heart and rapid breaths filling up the silence. No music. No city sounds, no TV on in the background.

But it wasn’t. It only served to make the moment more charged. It could’ve made me feel like some kind of object, bowing to the whims of a man, yet it didn’t. I felt powerful, with more agency than I’d ever had in my life.

By the time I was standing in my bra and panties, I was trembling with need. The bra and panties themselves were nothing special, just simple cotton. But Knox’s gaze on the fabric made me feel as if I were wearing the finest silks and laces.

With a long exhale, I reached back to unclasp my bra, letting it fall to the floor. Then I hooked my panties with my thumbs, bringing them down and stepping out of them.

I’d barely done that before he was on me, his hand tagging my neck and tugging me forward so my lips crashed against his once more. His hands trailed down my back, clenching my bare ass, pressing my naked body into his clothed one.

Once again, just as I was losing myself in the world-breaking, chaotic passion of the kiss, Knox detached himself.

“Can I just…” He looked violent. Crazed. Half mad with desire. But also something else, something conveyed by the softness of his tone. He looked almost … vulnerable.

It hit me in a place that wasn’t sexual. In my heart, a place I hadn’t thought Knox was able to touch.

“Can you what?” I probed. If he was asking for permission, then surely it must be some dirty, sordid thing that he needed my okay for. And I was ready to say yes to anything at that point.

“Look,” he ground out. “At you.”

He was asking permission to look at me after claiming my mouth? And after kidnapping me? After stealing my heart and soul and ruining me for all other men?

It should’ve been a complicated response to his simple question, but it wasn’t. I found myself coming to grips with the fact that I might’ve done absolutely anything he asked, without question if spoken in that tone that stroked me in places no hands could reach.

Instead of answering with my words, I untangled myself from him. It was immensely difficult because I loved being wrapped up in him, having his body so close.

The room was balmy, warm from the roaring fireplace. And my skin was hot with desire. There were tiny beads of perspiration already covering much of my naked body.

Despite this, my nipples peaked as I stepped back onto the rug, naked, for Knox to look at.

It should’ve brought forward a healthy dose of self-consciousness. It wasn’t easy, even with a familiar lover, to stand naked in front of them without moving, without the fervor of sex or even the distraction of life.

Distracted meant men saw tits, ass, pussy—not always in that order. They did not see ridges of cellulite, extra flesh around the midsection, little imperfections that seemed anything but little to women.

Knox wasn’t distracted. Not even a little.

His eyes were rapt on my skin. Every blemish, dimple, every imperfection.

He rubbed his hand over his mouth as he catalogued every inch of me. My knees trembled under the weight of his gaze. It was similar to how he’d looked at me when I’d had the towel on. He wasn’t worshiping me, not exactly. He wore the face of a man who was looking at something he wanted to plunder, wanted to brand. But there was also something else. He was a man coveting something he didn’t feel worthy of yet held a glint of knowing he was going to take it anyway.

After minutes, minutes of him looking over every crevice of my naked body, his eyes found mine.

“You are perfect,” he said, his voice nothing but a rasp.

That was a compliment that men tried to throw around because they felt that’s what we wanted to hear, but there was always an emptiness to it. Because they saw what they wanted to see in us, what they wanted us to be, considering that to be perfect. But Knox saw all of me, knew all of me and still considered me that way.

It was a dizzying weight, to be something precious to a man like Knox. I felt something lock into me. Something that told me we’d never disengage clean or without pain. That this wasn’t just sex. It was about souls too.

Knox let me walk up to him, but in a way, it felt like I was approaching a wild animal. Every one of my movements had to be slow, purposeful, or else he might’ve turned on me.

I felt it. Fear. I was afraid of Knox. Not as much as I should’ve been. Yet that was what drew me to him, that fear. It was what excited me. Made me feel alive.

My hands found the hem of his shirt, but just as I was about to peel it up, he caught my wrists in his grip.

My bones protested at how tight he was holding me, and I forced my breathing to stay steady.

Don’t betray an ounce of panic , I told myself.

Looking upward, I met his eyes. They seemed to be black pools of darkness, tendrils of it curling around my skin, sinking past layers of flesh and bone to the very core of me.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, laying one of my hands on top of his, stroking, coaxing.

He flexed his grip, and I gritted my teeth against the pain. He could’ve broken my wrist if he wanted to in that moment. Doing that would’ve shattered me. Shattered all that lay between us. Because though I reveled in the pain that he made me feel, the roughness in which he handled me, the danger I danced by being close to him … the most precious thing about him was the violence he emanated but never truly released upon me. I wanted to be the one thing that was special to him, as delirious as it was. If he hurt me like he did everyone else, he would no longer be anything better than my father.

I was walking on a knife’s edge. We were. One wrong move and we’d sever everything between us.

Knox took an audible breath, nostrils flaring, eyes strained. He was fighting against his baser nature. Or one of them, at least. One that was telling him to hurt rather than open to the chance of being hurt.

I waited.

He let go.

My heart swelled at the trust he gave me, the enormity of the gift that trust was.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled up the shirt.

“Arms up,” I ordered, my voice only shaking a little. I knew he caught it. He was watching me like a hawk. Every tell my body had that I was afraid and aroused didn’t go unnoticed by him.

Despite his predatory gaze, he complied with my request.

I let out a breath as I exposed his torso. Muscled, chiseled, as I’d expected. The skin was porcelain, flawless.

On his torso, at least.

When I exposed his arms, I saw it.

Scars. Ribbons of them. From his wrists all the way up to his shoulder. There must’ve been hundreds .

Though I knew I needed to be mindful, I couldn’t restrain the gasp that came out of my mouth upon seeing them. Without even thinking, I reached out to touch the skin to ensure it was real. It couldn’t have been. He couldn’t have been sleeping next to me, been curled up with my soul while I’d been ignorant to what was obviously a huge part of him.

Knox stiffened as my hand reached forward.

My fingers hovered a hair's breadth away from the ruined skin when I looked up at him once more. His jaw was as rigid as iron; I could see him clenching it. His chest moved up and down heavily.

No one had seen these scars. I knew this inexplicably. Knox didn’t let anyone see what was vulnerable, human about him. He was ashamed. That’s why he’d been so intent on ensuring I didn’t see this, even when he was bleeding from a bullet wound. This was his secret, his shame, the most vulnerable part of him.

And he was showing me.

“What… Who did this?” I asked him in a strangled whisper. Fury simmered low in my gut toward the beast that was capable of inflicting such pain upon someone.

“I did,” he replied without dropping his gaze from mine. His tone was cold. Inhuman. I knew it was because he was protecting himself. He was waiting for me to shrink back in disgust or be scared off.

I looked from him to the scars, taking stock. Some of them looked older, others were puckered and raised. And there were a handful, I was horrified to see, that were red and angry, barely healed.

Recent.

He’d done it while here.

I’d been there, sleeping maybe, and he was cutting through his skin to create more scars.

“It’s the only way I can cleanse it,” he murmured, watching me. “My blood. Otherwise, the filth builds up.”

I nodded, even though I didn’t understand what he meant by that. I understood it was related to the abuse in his past, the way the trauma had manifested in making him feel unclean. The result of the assault on such a pure, defenseless body. On an innocent, vulnerable mind. My blood boiled at the visible evidence of what he’d been through, corroboration that barely scratched the surface of how far reaching the talons of his abuse had scraped.

My fingers traveled the small distance I’d put between us. Knox flinched as I made contact with the skin, but he didn’t push my hand away. I felt the ridges of the scars, the hardness and softness of the healing skin. I went over them, tracing the shapes with the pads of my fingers, thinking of Knox doing this to himself. Over and over again. For years.

I ached to tell him that he didn’t need to do this. Didn’t need to punish himself for the sin of being a victim since that was not a sin at all. I wanted to take him into my arms and protect him.

But this was not the time.

He had not revealed this in order for me to take care of him. He needed to see that I saw this and still wanted him. That was the thing he was holding on to so tightly, thinking that he was too ruined to be wanted, to be desired.

Once I found my way to his shoulders, I slid my hand to his flawless neck and pulled him toward me.

He resisted for a millisecond, but then he understood my request. His mouth was on mine in an instant. I reveled in the warmth of the kiss. It was edged with desperation, a palpable relief from Knox. It was as if he’d expected to never kiss me again after exposing himself. It was the wall I’d been feeling with him this week, since he revealed himself in the woods. He had been bracing for the impact.

I might not have fully understood this man—I got the sense it would take a lifetime to do that—but I was comprehending that this was the first time, maybe ever, that he’d opened himself up for any kind of pain, and he was expecting to be rejected.

It seemed impossible that a man like him could be hurt, even when he showed me the parts of him that were soft. Because even his soft parts were covered in scar tissue.

There was nothing hotter to me, it turned out, than a monster who needed some humanity.

We made quick work of his pants and underwear, though there was nothing quick about the way I regarded his cock. My eyes went wide as I took in the length, the girth, the perfection of it, standing at attention. For me. I’d never been much enchanted by the male member, finding it … ugly, for lack of a better word. But this was not ugly. I might’ve even described it as majestic. With great effort, I ripped my gaze from the member between his legs, forcing it up his chiseled torso to his eyes. They were hooded with a hunger that I felt in my core. My hands landed on his defined pecs, warm, skin impossibly soft. I reveled in the ability to touch him.

“I would like,” I breathed against his mouth, “very much if you would fuck me.”

His eyes flared, and he let out a hiss. He didn’t linger in the shock of my request for long, snatching me up roughly. I wrapped my legs around his hips, gasping as my soaking-wet, bare core ground up against his hard shaft.

I got the sense he was going for the bed, but the second I rubbed up against him, he let out a growl and we descended.

My back hit the cold wood floor, juxtaposed with Knox’s blistering hot body pressing into every inch of me, his cock brushing right where I needed it but not entering.

“I’m not going to be gentle, Piper.” His face was inches from mine. “I have a need to worship your body, taste your cunt…”

One of his fingers brushed past his rigid length, gliding inside my slick core, making my eyes roll to the back of my head from the perfect intrusion.

They were gone much too soon. I was about to protest when he held them up between us, glistening with … me. Maintaining eye contact, he put those fingers in his mouth, tasting me.

I squirmed at the intensely intimate act that was easily the sexiest thing I’d ever witnessed.

“Yeah, I’ll be feasting on that cunt.” His eyes were clouded with the storm of his carnality. “I’ll worship you.” His hand circled my neck. “But my form of worship may seem like a form of torture. I don’t know how to be gentle.”

His words hit like a whip against my hungry skin.

He didn’t want to hurt me. He wanted me. It was painted in the air, it dripped off his breath. But he was battling against his baser instincts, believing himself unable to not harm the things he wanted.

I leaned up, grabbing his neck to drag his mouth down to cover mine, to kiss him brutally, brushing my teeth against his lips until the coppery taste of blood filled both of our mouths.

I licked my lips as I pulled back enough so I could see his eyes.

“I’m not asking for gentleness, Knox,” I rasped. “I want you .”

His body twitched with the words I suspected he didn’t consider himself deserving to hear, his expression frosting with animalistic need.

He kissed me again, his hunger for me palpable. My back arched as I urged him closer, needing the connection, that final nail in my proverbial coffin.

Even without it, I was done for.

“Protection,” he rasped, poised against my entrance, holding back from sheer force of will. I could see it in his eyes, see it in the cords of his neck, the shallow, rapid exhales and the tension around his eyes.

He wanted to thrust into me. He was wild with need, but not completely. Even then, in his most raw and carnal state, Knox was holding on to control. Reason.

“We don’t need it.” I was nowhere near possessing any kind of reason or control. My body only knew need. And I needed Knox inside me. Right away.

“We need it,” he grunted. His cold gaze battled with the hot need of his nature. Even then, he couldn’t let go of control. “I want you, more than anything, but I’m not fucking risking it.”

We were poised there, in a moment of wild abandon, yet logic was a cold snake, swirling around us.

“I’m clean,” I bit out. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

His eyes glittered. “I’m not worried about you fucking tarnishing me , Pipe.”

My head cleared slightly as I took in his meaning. “Are you…”

“In this one and only sense of the word, I am … clean ,” he spat the word as if it tasted bad.

Now, I was a worldly woman and knew better than to take ordinary men at their word with such things. I’d never, not once, risked my body nor my health solely on a man’s word. But Knox was no ordinary man, and I trusted him with my body. My life.

We’d established that we were both clean, yet he was still adamant about protection.

“If it’s pregnancy you’re worried about, that can’t happen,” I told him, my body still wrought with rapture.

Knox was still stock-still. Not even a slight furrow to his brows.

When I arched my back in order to try to coax him inside, he let out a feral hiss but didn’t move. His grip was steel, flexing past the point of pleasurable pain to where it just hurt. A warning.

“I’m not taking even a single chance on that ,” he told me in a tone that chilled my very blood.

Faraway, I stored this visceral emotion that communicated how very strongly he felt about procreation. It made a lot of sense, given his past. His present. I mourned that for him.

“This is going to ruin the moment,” I sighed.

Knox pressed into my clit with his cock, eliciting a small groan of pleasure from my mouth.

“Nothing will ruin this moment, Piper.” His teeth brushed my neck. “Not even if the sun fell from the fucking sky.”

My chest ached as his words stole the breath from my lungs.

Well, there were no other options. He wasn’t going to give me what I craved unless I gave him a concrete reason as to why we didn’t need protection.

“I had cancer,” I blurted. “When I was eighteen. Ovarian cancer. I beat it, obviously. But I can never have children.”

Those words said out loud should’ve sucked all the sexiness out of the room. The word ‘cancer’ and the explanation that I was barren was a surefire way to kill the moment.

Knox had flinched as if I’d struck him when I spoke, but his cock was still rock hard at my entrance, his body was still coiled with lust. His eyes searched mine, wholly clear of the rabid hunger that had been there moments ago. For just a moment, though.

Then, in one brutal thrust, he was inside me.

He was big, bordering on huge, and even though I was soaking and primed, I hadn’t had sex in a long while.

It hurt, but that only served to help take the edge off the overwhelming pleasure I felt as he seated himself to the hilt.

My eyes were locked on his as the world exploded in whites and blacks before he came back into focus in stark sharpness.

“You’re never escaping me now, Piper.” He didn’t move, just filled me. “This,” he pushed forward ever so slightly. I clasped his back as spears of pleasure cut through me. “This is everything I couldn’t have imagined. And you’re mine now.” He clutched me tighter. “I’m not letting go. Ever. No one is getting in this cunt.” He pistoned forward again, harder this time, rougher. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t relinquish eye contact with Knox.

“No one is ever touching you again,” he vowed. “No one.”

I let my breath out in short gasps, desperate for friction, for the release my body was waiting for, my insides coiling as he spoke.

“You need to say the words, Piper.”

The possessiveness to his tone, the ownership in the words… Neither made me recoil, didn’t make me grasp for a sense of independence that had once seemed so vital to my identity.

“No one is ever touching me again,” I agreed. “I’m yours.”

His eyes searched my face, as if he were expecting to find a shadow of a lie there.

He wouldn’t find anything. I was his. Forever. Even though such a concept was laughable considering the circumstances, that didn’t make it any more or less true.

“Good,” he nodded, after finding the sincerity on my face.

Then he began moving, thrusting with such force I saw stars, and an orgasm pressed against my very throat.

The sensation was too much, his size, stretching me to my limits, pain accompanying the mind-blowing pleasure.

I exploded.

Into a million and one pieces.

And I’d never collect them again. Never be able to put myself back together the way I had been before that moment.

Whatever happened in the uncertain and scary future that lay outside the cabin didn’t matter.

I was gone.

I was Knox’s.