Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
PARIS
The footsteps in the hallway make my stomach clench. Heavy. Measured. Mike’s stride, coming for another ‘visit.’
That asshole forgot my breakfast.
Will he go through with it this time? Make me beg for food?
I curl around my pillow, back to the door, bracing for his voice, his hands, the stench of cigarettes and entitlement. Yesterday, I scrubbed until my skin turned raw under the shower to get rid of it, but nothing feels clean anymore.
Not in this place.
The lock turns with a metallic click that sends ice through my veins. I squeeze my eyes shut, like a child hiding from monsters. If I don’t look, maybe he’ll leave the food and go. The door hinges creak, then close. The lock clicks again.
My muscles coil tight enough to snap.
“Paris.”
Not Mike’s voice. A ghost’s voice. A dream’s voice.
His voice.
I don’t move. Can’t. If I turn around and he’s not there, I’ll shatter into pieces too small to ever find again.
“Paris, look at me.”
I bury my head deeper in the pillow. I’ve finally cracked. Four months of Gabriel’s experiments, Mike’s threats, isolation, and hunger have finally broken my brain. The voice is too perfect, too much like memory to be real.
“Princess.”
My heart stops. Restarts. Races. That stupid, perfect word.
“Please.” His voice again, closer now. The mattress dips slightly behind me. A hand brushes my shoulder. “It’s me.”
I whirl around so fast my vision blurs, the world spinning until it crystallizes around one impossible truth.
He’s here.
Knox kneels at my bed, gray eyes locked on mine. His jaw darkened with stubble, hair shorter than before, face thinner but unmistakably him.
Real enough to touch. Real enough to—
“Knox?” My voice breaks on his name.
He nods once, and something inside me shatters.
I launch myself at him, crashing into his chest with enough force to knock us both backward onto the floor. His arms encircle me immediately, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other locked around my waist.
If this is madness, I choose it over sanity.
I bury my face in his neck, breathing in his scent that no hallucination could recreate. “Please don’t disappear.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He rocks me slightly. “I’ve got you.”
His heartbeat thunders against my chest, his breath warm against my hair as he murmurs soothing nonsense.
I missed him. I missed him so much.
“Let me look at you,” he says, trying to create space between us.
“No.”
“Paris.” His lips brush my temple. “I need to see you.”
“You’ll disappear.”
“I won’t. Promise.” His hand cups my face, forcing me to look up. “See? Still here.”
His thumb strokes my cheek, wiping away tears I didn’t know I was crying. His eyes scan my face, taking inventory of changes I can only guess at—the hollows beneath my cheekbones, chapped lips, and chaotic hair.
I avert my eyes.
“Don’t.” Knox’s voice carries a gentle command as his fingers tilt my chin up. “Please.”
I meet his gaze, something in me withering under his inspection. What does he see? I’m not the Paris he met.
His pupils contract as his gaze travels down to my neck, where Mike’s hand left marks. “Did he do this?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m alive.”
Something flashes in his eyes. “Did he—”
“No.” Not yet. Not all the way. But close. “Not like you’re thinking.”
A vein throbs in his jaw. “Mike’s not coming back. I’m your security detail now.”
“What? How—”
“Min-ji. She arranged it.”
“She hates me.”
“No. She’s been protecting you.” His thumb brushes the bruise. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“When?”
“Soon. I need you to trust me.”
“Trust? How—You left me. I woke up and you were gone.”
“Supply run. I’m sorry.” His fingers curl into fists on his thighs. “When I got back—”
I crush my lips to his. I don’t want explanations. I want his taste, his heat, proof that he’s flesh and blood and mine. He responds instantly, mouth opening to mine, tongue seeking entrance that I eagerly grant. The kiss is messy, four months of absence, and half-sobbed breaths.
“I thought you left me,” I gasp against his lips. “Thought I imagined you.”
“Never.” He spins us, my spine hitting the wood. “I’d burn down the world to find you.”
His words light a fire through my veins, turning the ice of four months’ isolation I should have been used to into steam. His mouth travels from my lips to my jaw, trailing hot kisses down to the bruises on my neck. He hesitates there, his breath a gentle caress against the marks.
“I’ll kill him,” he whispers against my pulse point, and the vibration of his voice sends tremors through my body.
“Later,” I breathe. “Need you now.”
“We shouldn’t—” he starts, but I silence him with another kiss.
The rational part of my brain knows this is insane. Gabriel’s house. My prison. Anyone could walk in. But the broken part doesn’t care. I need something, him, to remind me I’m still human. Still alive. Still capable of feeling something besides fear and pain.
He tugs my shirt up, and I raise my arms, desperate for his skin on mine. The fabric barely clears my head before his mouth is on my breast, teeth grazing my nipple. I gasp, the sensation shooting straight between my legs.
“Quiet.” He muffles me with his hand. “Can’t let them hear.”
I nod against his palm, eyes wide. He removes his hand only to replace it with his mouth, swallowing my moans as his fingers work at the drawstring of my leggings. I lift my hips, helping him slide them off my legs with my underwear.
“Your turn.” My fingers fumble with his uniform, yanking at buttons that refuse to cooperate.
He helps, shrugging out of the jacket, then removing his shirt. He’s broader than I remember.
I let my fingers glide over his chest, tracing the roadmap of new scars, his muscles twitching beneath my touch. Down, down I go, following the ridges to his belt. My hands tremble as I work the buckle, the metal clinking as it gives way.
“Missed you.” I pop the button on his pants. “Every fucking day.”
His chest heaves, his breath coming in shallow pants as I lower his zipper. “Paris—”
“Shh.” I free his hard length, a bead of pre-cum glistening at the tip.
I gather it with my thumb, bringing it to my lips. The salt-bitter taste bursts on my tongue as I lick it up, eyes locked on his.
His pupils blow out, nearly black. “Fuck.”
In the blink of an eye, he grabs both my wrists, pinning them above my head against the cold floor. His weight shifts, settling between my thighs, his cock nudging my entrance. I’m already embarrassingly wet, body remembering exactly what it’s been missing.
He rolls his hips, the head of his cock parting my folds, teasing but not entering. The pressure is exquisite torture.
“Mine,” he growls, tightening his grip on my wrists. “Say it.”
“Yours.” My voice breaks on the word. “Always have been.”
His nose grazes mine. “Need you so fucking much.”
“Then take me.” I angle my hips, trying to draw him in deeper. “Make me feel something good again.”
He stretches me open in one slow, but relentless thrust.
The burn is delicious, my body yielding to the rightness of him inside me again. I bite my lip to keep from crying out as he withdraws almost completely before slamming back in.
“Did you miss this, too?” His other hand cradles my jaw, thumb freeing my lip. “Miss my cock filling you up?”
“Yes.” I meet his thrusts, reclaiming parts of myself I thought were lost forever.
Footsteps approach in the hallway outside, and Knox freezes mid-thrust.
A knock.
Then my brother’s voice. “Paris?”
Knox resumes his movements, slower now but no less deep. His teeth graze my earlobe as he whispers, “Answer him.”
“I don’t want to see you,” I call out, fighting to keep my voice steady.
“Dramatic as always,” Gabriel says. “I merely wanted to inform you that you can thank Min-ji for the change. She was quite insistent.”
Knox pinches my nipple, rolling it between his fingers as he continues his torturously slow thrusts. My inner walls flutter around him, wringing a nearly silent groan from his throat.
“Okay,” I manage. “Thank you.”
“Be nice to her,” Gabriel continues, oblivious to what’s happening mere feet away. “She’s doing you a favor.”
Knox’s mouth finds my neck, teeth scraping. “Your pussy’s getting wetter. You like this, don’t you? The danger?”
I shake my head, earning a deeper thrust that nearly makes me cry out.
“I’ll be nice,” I say, voice hitching as Knox’s hand drifts down to circle my clit. “Is that all?”
Please get the fuck away.
Knox’s fingers press harder, making my legs shake.
“For now,” Gabriel says.
Silence stretches for several heartbeats. The floorboards outside my door don’t creak. Is he listening?
Knox abandons my clit to grab my chin, capturing my mouth in a bruising kiss as he fucks me deeper, harder. I’m drowning in sensation, torn between terror of discovery and overwhelming pleasure.
Finally, Gabriel’s footsteps move away, fading down the hall.
“You’re fucking crazy,” I gasp as Knox finally breaks our kiss, both of us panting like we’ve run marathons. His eyes glitter in the dim light of my prison, wild and possessive and so alive compared to everything else in this sterile hellhole. “I love you.”
His eyes widen at my confession.
No. Shit. Stup—
He buries himself impossibly deeper, like he’s trying to crawl inside me, to carve out a space that only he can fill. “Say it again.” His voice scrapes over the words, grinding them out between clenched teeth.
“I love you.” I arch beneath him, feeling the hard floor dig into my shoulder blades. “I love you, Knox.”
Every inch of me is alive with sensation—the cold of wood against my back, the delicious weight of him pinning me down, the stretch and burn as he claims me again and again.
“I thought about this—” He releases my wrists to grab my hips, angling them upward. The change in position sends him deeper, grinding that spot that makes my vision blur and nerve endings sing. “Every. Fucking. Night.”