Hook #2
I open the driver’s door and slide in without looking at her, movements smooth and unhurried because I don’t have to look.
She’s already loud enough without my attention.
“You don’t get to do this,” she snarls, voice shaking with impotent rage. “I said no. Do you even fucking know what that word means?”
I close the door behind me with a soft click.
Start the engine with a press of the button.
The car responds immediately, purring to life. No hesitation. No warning lights. Everything working exactly as intended, as I’ve maintained it to work.
“Don’t ignore me, you sick fucking—”
“Breathe,” I say calmly, adjusting the mirror.
“Go to hell.”
“I’ve been there,” I reply, and it’s not a lie. “It’s not as interesting as people think.”
“I’m not yours.”
“You’re already in my car,” I point out, as if that settles the matter.
The tyres roll forward, smooth and unhurried, like time itself has slowed to match my pace, like the universe is in no particular rush to intervene.
She kicks the back of the seat behind me.
Hard enough that I feel it.
Not like a scream.
Like a warning, like she’s still got fight left and wants me to know it.
I don’t react, don’t give her the satisfaction of a flinch or a word.
That’s the mistake the others made—thinking resistance meant she was still in control, that her fury indicated power rather than the last desperate gasps of autonomy.
But her fury is just foreplay, just the opening act.
She’s already chosen submission by staying, by getting in, by showing up tonight.
She just doesn’t want to say it yet, doesn’t want to admit it to herself.
I drive slowly, deliberately, every turn smooth as silk, every stop calculated and precise, because chaos would give her the illusion that she’s still shaking something loose, still affecting the outcome.
But nothing’s loose anymore.
Everything’s exactly where it should be.
She’s contained, sealed in metal and leather and my will.
The city slides past outside the windows—lights bleeding in the rain, signs reflected and distorted, people who will never know how close she is to disappearing from her old life entirely.
She leans forward, eyes burning through the side of my face with an intensity I can feel.
“Take me back.”
“No,” I say simply.
“Fucking take me back.”
“No.”
“Let me out.”
“You didn’t ask nicely,” I observe, almost conversational.
She moves to hit me, arm swinging forward.
I catch her wrist mid-air.
Hard enough that her momentum stops dead.
Hold it suspended like it’s weightless, like she’s a child throwing a tantrum.
Like a collar snapping tight.
Like a warning she should have heeded earlier.
Like a goddamn promise of what happens when she crosses lines.
She freezes, entire body going rigid.
Her breath stops in her throat because this is the first time I’ve touched her like this—really touched her with intent. Not a tug, not a pull, not guidance. A grip that communicates ownership.
Like a collar.
Like a warning.
Like a goddamn promise.
Her eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror, and I don’t blink, don’t look away first.
The car hums beneath us, engine steady. The world narrows to this exact moment, to this exact confrontation.
I squeeze until she makes a sound—not quite pain, not quite a gasp.
Not pain exactly.
Not rage exactly.
Something between the two, something more honest than either and then she slaps me with her free hand.
Full force, palm cracking against my cheek.
Palm against cheek, loud in the closed space of the car, sharp and bright and burning.
The sound cracks through the interior like punctuation, like an exclamation mark on her defiance.
I take it without flinching.
I fucking welcome it, truth be told.
Then I pull the car over to the side of the empty road, put it in park with deliberate slowness, and turn to her like the beast I’ve been keeping beneath my skin is finally done pretending to be civilised.
“You want a fight?” I growl, voice low and dark and intimate in the confined space. “Good. Because I’ve been starving for one.”
She tries to pull her hand back, tugging against my grip.
I don’t let her, fingers tightening around the delicate bones.
I drag her across the console by her wrist, until she’s half in my lap, twisted and breathless and furious, body contorted awkwardly in the confined space.
Her knee hits my thigh hard enough to bruise. Her other hand goes to push at my chest, nails scraping. She’s spitting venom, all fangs and fire, words tumbling out in a stream of curses—but I don’t hear any of them clearly because her body is already betraying her intentions.
Her breath is catching in her throat.
Her pulse is thundering visibly in her neck.
And when I press my hook against the inside of her thigh, not sharp enough to cut, just there—just present as a reminder of what I could do—she goes still as stone.
I bring my mouth close to hers, so close she can feel the heat of me radiating across the millimetre of space between us, the restraint it takes not to bite.
“Tell me to stop, and I will,” I say, and it’s not a lie.
She opens her mouth, lips parting but nothing comes out, no words, no refusal.
Her lip trembles with the weight of what she’s not saying.
And that’s when I know with absolute certainty.
She doesn’t want me to stop.
She wants me to force her to admit it, to take the choice away so she doesn’t have to own this moment.
So I tighten my grip just a little more, just enough.
“Say it,” I breathe, voice like steel dragging over silk. “Say you don’t want this.”
But she can’t speak the lie.
She won’t give me the words that would end this because her pupils are blown wide and dark, swallowing the colour.
Her thighs are shaking against mine.
The fight’s still in her—but it’s turning inward now, warring with the part of her that already belongs to me whether she’s admitted it yet or not.
She still doesn’t say it, doesn’t speak the magic words that would make me stop.
Not “no.”
Not “stop.”
Not don’t, not please, not any of the things that would end this.
Her mouth opens like she’s about to bite again, teeth bared, but I see it—right there at the edge of her rage like a fault line—desperation bleeding through.
The kind that tastes like shame when you swallow it. The kind that floods the body before the mind can catch up and construct defences. The kind that makes you press your thighs together even as your lips keep lying.
So I drag her further across the console, not slowly, not carefully—just deliberately, with purpose. One knee wedged between mine, her body twisted and contorted to fit exactly where I want her, exactly how I need her positioned.
She hits me again, tries to. Her palm catches my chest with no real weight behind it, like her strength is already shifting to survival mode—but not the kind that runs away.
The kind that begs to be conquered.
She shoves against me.
I pin her wrists against the seat with one hand.
She snarls something about freedom, about choice, about how I’m just another fucking man trying to—
But she cuts off mid-sentence because I press the flat of the hook between her thighs through her jeans and her whole body jerks like she’s been electrocuted.
Not from pain.
From contact, from the reality of metal against denim against skin.
From recognition of what’s happening.
“You hate this,” I murmur, voice rough and patient and close enough that she can feel it.
“Fuck you,” she spits.
“You hate me,” I continue as if she hasn’t spoken.
“I want you dead,” she hisses, and maybe she even believes it.
“Then why are you dripping through your fucking knickers, Tahlia?”
Her face goes red, flush spreading from her cheeks down her throat.
Not from rage this time.
From exposure, from being seen, from having the truth dragged into the light.
I haven’t even touched skin yet, haven’t made contact with anything but fabric and she’s already wet enough that I can feel it through the denim, can sense the heat and slickness even through the layers.
I release one wrist just long enough to drag my fingers between her legs with deliberate pressure—just to prove it, just to show her what she won’t say out loud.
She shudders when I press against the heat there, muscles clenching. Just once. Just enough to confirm what we both know.
Then I pull back and hold my fingers up between us in the dim light of the car.
Shining with moisture. Soaked. Silent proof of her body’s betrayal.
She looks at them like they’ve betrayed her somehow.
Like her own body is a traitor working for the enemy.
“You don’t get to do this,” she breathes, voice shaking like it’s trying to climb up her throat and escape.
“I already did,” I point out calmly.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“No,” I say, slipping my fingers into her mouth without warning, pushing them slowly between her lips until she’s gagging on the taste of herself, on the evidence of her arousal, “you fucking answered for it.”
Her mouth trembles around my knuckles, warm and wet.
And then—
She bites down on my fingers.
Hard enough that I feel teeth.
Not enough to break skin or cause real damage.
But enough to challenge me, enough to throw down the gauntlet.
Enough to dare me to respond.
And I fucking love it, love that she’s still got fight.
I pull my fingers free, slowly, slick with saliva and coated in her defiance, then shove them back between her legs, harder now, pressing against the thin barrier of denim like I might tear it open if she doesn’t open herself first.
She gasps, a sound punched from her lungs.
Clutches at my shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric.
And that’s the moment when everything shifts.
That’s when it changes.
She surges forward—not to slap this time.
To kiss.
Mouth crashing into mine like war, all teeth and spit and fury, like if she can just consume me first, I won’t get the chance to own her, like she can reclaim power through aggression.
She’s too late for that strategy because I already do own her.