Chapter 6 #2
I spend the first hour learning her. Not fucking her—mapping her.
The way her breath fractures when I drag my thumb across the inside of her wrist where the belt has left its red line.
The specific sound she makes when my mouth finds the soft skin below her ribs versus higher up.
The way her hips chase my hand like she can't help it, chasing friction I keep deliberately withholding, her body making promises her voice hasn't caught up to yet.
Three times, I bring her to the edge. Three times I pull back.
The first time, she takes it with a sharp exhale and a glare that could strip paint.
The second time, she swears at me in two languages.
The third time—
A sound outside stops everything.
My hand goes to the nightstand before the sound finishes registering. The Glock is in my palm before Wren processes that I've moved. She freezes beneath me, the frantic need draining out of her body in a single second, replaced by something cold and absolute.
I hold up two fingers. Stay.
She doesn't breathe.
I move to the window, pressing flat against the wall, and angle a look through the gap in the curtain.
The clearing. The tree line. Nothing—no movement, no shapes.
Just the black architecture of pine against a moonlit sky.
I scan for thirty seconds. A minute. The motion sensor on the exterior hasn't triggered.
I check the feed on my phone. Nothing moves.
A branch drop. Wind-stripped. The kind of sound the forest makes all night when no one's listening.
I do a complete circuit anyway: front window, back window, both doors.
Clear.
When I come back to the bedroom, Wren is sitting upright against the headboard, wrists still bound, the sheet pulled to her chest. Her eyes track me the way a soldier tracks a threat. Not panic—assessment.
"What was it?"
"Branch drop." I set the Glock back on the nightstand. "Wind. Nothing."
A beat of silence. Her exhale is slow and controlled, the fear processed and filed.
"How do you do that?" Her voice is steady. "Go from—" she gestures between us "—to that, and back."
"Same way you do." I reach up and release the belt from the headboard, leaving it looped around her wrists. "Threat assessment is a switch. You learn to flip it."
"That's not comforting."
"No." I press her back against the pillows, my weight settling over her, and run my mouth along her jaw. "But we're clear. And now I know you don't freeze."
"And that matters to you."
"More than you know."
The mood has shifted. What was heat is now something rawer—the specific electricity of two people who are fully aware they're alive and might not stay that way.
She wraps her legs around me before I ask, pulling me in.
The sound she makes when I enter her tears through the cabin like something that can't be taken back.
I work her slowly. Deliberately. Every stroke measured, every sound from her catalogued and used.
She's still trying to think, still trying to hold herself together, and I dismantle it piece by piece until she's begging in a voice scraped raw, her whole body shaking, pulling against the belt, fighting the edge I keep dragging her toward and pulling her back from.
"Please." The word tears out of her. "Please, Kade, please—"
I release the belt.
"Hands and knees." Already there. "Good girl."
She barely registers her hands are free before I flip her—stomach to the mattress, hips pulled up exactly where I want them. She scrambles into position without a word, and the trust in it—that immediate, total, unguarded compliance—hits somewhere I'm not cataloguing right now.
"Don't you dare stop." She looks back over her shoulder, hair wrecked, cheeks flushed dark. "I will end you, Kade."
"Next time," I say, running the doubled belt lightly across one cheek—watching her breath stutter, her hips rock back toward me—"I use this on your ass instead. Find out how pink I can make you."
“I’m not against that.” She pushes back against me, impatient and absolutely unashamed. "I bruise pretty. Would love something to remember this by."
"Don't tempt me, little bird."
I grip her hip with one hand, angle with the other, and drive in without preamble—all the way, one stroke—and the sound she makes tears through the cabin.
After that, there's no more talking.
I lean back against the headboard, my chest heaving, watching the steam rise off our skin in the drafty cabin air. My heart is a frantic sledgehammer against my ribs. I need a second. Just one second to find my footing before I go back in.
She’s slumped against the pillows, her hair a wild, dark halo. She looks wrecked, but there’s a spark of defiance in the way she bites her lip.
"What's the matter, Kade?" she rasps, her voice shredded velvet. “Can't keep up?"
I let out a low, rough ghost of a laugh, wiping sweat from my forehead. "Give me a minute, little bird. I’m savoring the sight of you being unable to move."
"I can move just fine," she counters, though she doesn't actually shift an inch.
“Is that true?" I slide off the bed, my muscles tight and screaming, and stand over her. I reach down, grabbing her wrists and pulling her toward the edge of the mattress until her legs hang off. "On the floor. On your knees. Now."
She slides down, the hardwood biting into her skin. She looks up at me, those dark eyes wide and tracking every inch of me.
"Open,” I growl, my hand tangling in her hair to tilt her head back.
I’m getting hard again—aching and heavy.
Insatiable. I guide myself to her lips, the heat of her breath hitting me like a physical blow.
“I want to watch you take every inch of me, little bird. Take it all, or we’re staying on this floor all night. "
She doesn't need a second command. She takes me with a focus that’s purely predatory, her hands gripping my thighs. I watch her eyes go glassy as I crowd her throat, pushing until she’s gasping, her fingers digging into my quads for purchase.
The sight of her—brilliant, dangerous, and currently reduced to this—hits me like a shot of adrenaline. I watch the way her throat works, the way she tries to breathe around me, her surrender absolute and silent.
"You like the taste of it, don't you?" I look down at her. " Knowing exactly who's filling you up."
I haul her up by the armpits, her legs scrambling for a second before I spin her, slamming her back against the cold plaster of the wall.
The impact makes the frames rattle. I hike her hips up, her legs locking around my waist like a vice, and I drive into her—one deep, punishing stroke that pins her against the wall.
"You love this, don't you?" I growl into her ear, my hands bruising her thighs as I set a brutal, rhythmic pace. "Me filling you with my cock, fucking you against a wall like an animal. No talking, no thinking. Just me owning every bit of you."
"Yes—God, Kade—more.” She lets out a broken, high-pitched cry, her head thrashing against the wall. “Harder. Fuck me harder.”
"Look at me," I command, and when her blown-out eyes meet mine, I hit her harder. "I'm going to ruin you for anyone else. You're going to be walking for a week and thinking about how I took you apart in this cabin. You're mine, little bird. Say it."
"Yours," she gasps, her fingers clawing at my shoulders. "All yours."
I don't stop until she’s a shivering wreck, her body disintegrating in my arms with a release so violent she forgets to breathe. I follow her over the ledge, my shout muffled against the junction of her neck and shoulder.
I slide her down the wall until her feet hit the floor, but her knees buckle. I catch her, hoisting her up against my chest.
"I think..." she starts, her voice barely a thread of sound as I carry her back to the ravaged bed. "I think you win."
"We both win," I grumble, my own legs feeling like lead.
She collapses into the center of the mattress. I crawl in after her, dragging the heavy quilt over us both. I pull her sweat-damp body against mine, her back to my chest, my arm hooked over her waist.
I hold her later, her back against my chest, my arm hooked over her waist. The drafty cabin air cools the sweat on our skin.
"Kade?" she breathes, her voice already heavy with sleep.
"Yeah?"
"You fuck like a god."
I let out a short, breathy laugh against the back of her neck. "Careful, little bird. The last thing you want to do is give me a god complex."
"Maybe that's exactly what I want. Build a shrine to Kade Bishop.” She hums, a low, vibrating sound of pure satisfaction as she settles deeper into my heat. “I’ll be eagerly on my knees, worshiping your very impressive cock.”
“I love the sound of that, little bird.” I tighten my arm around her, the weight of her surrender sinking into my bones. "Go to sleep."
"Never let go," she murmurs, her breath finally evening out.
"Never."
Sleep takes me the way it does after combat—fast and total, no edges.
Morning comes with Wren pressed against my side, one leg thrown over mine, her breath warm against my chest. She stirs—that soft moment of confusion before reality crashes back.
Her body goes from pliant to rigid, her breathing catching as the weight of Black Helix and the wreckage of the night before settle in her eyes.
But she doesn't pull away. She presses closer, her hand sliding down my stomach, low and proprietary.
"Morning," she murmurs, her voice a gravelly wreck. She shifts, sliding down the mattress until she’s between my thighs. She looks up at me, a wicked, sleepy smile tugging at her lips. "I believe I promised you some morning worship. A god shouldn't have to wait, right?"
"Wren—"