His dark eyes burned with rage as he slowly tore my paper in two, and then tore those pieces in half again. “Out.” His lip curled when I didn’t make an attempt to move. “Don’t make me drag you out of there, Briar.”
“Please,” I said weakly. My stomach churned, and I swallowed back bile. “Lucas, plea—” I broke off quickly when I saw the shock covering his face at the sound of his own name.
But just as fast as the shock had appeared, it was gone, and his anger was back and worse than before. “Out.”
I was screaming at myself to move, to walk out of the closet, but my legs weren’t working. It was as though they were no longer a part of my body, and I continued to stand frozen in fear. My body trembled, but no tears came this time.
His first step into the closet finally forced my own—only it was the wrong way. I stumbled backward with each of his long, quick steps in my direction.
“No, no, no!” I screamed when he reached me.
He grabbed my wrist and yanked me away from where I was trying to disappear into a wall of clothes, then pulled me roughly behind him.
“Let go of me,” I continued to scream, and fought against his tight hold. “I hate you. Let me go.” My feet got caught in the bunched-up sheet on the floor and I started falling, but before I could hit the floor, the devil grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder.
He continued his trek through the closet and equally large bathroom to the bed without seeming to care as I punched his back as hard as I could, over and over. “You should have walked out on your own when you had a chance.”
“I hate you!”
“So you’ve told me.”
The next punch aimed at his back ended up clipping his shoulder when he shoved me onto the bed. I was swinging for his face before I finished settling onto the bed, but he caught my hands in his own and used my fists as leverage to pull me up toward him.
Once our faces were no more than a breath apart, his lip curled and his dark eyes pierced mine. “You want to fight me, Blackbird? Then fight me,” he goaded. “Fight this. I want you to.”
In moves too fast for me to try to stop, he slammed me back down onto the bed and flipped me onto my stomach, all while keeping a tight grip on my fists. My hands were now pinned between our bodies, and my already sore shoulders screamed in protest when he pulled my wrists closer together, stretching them far down my body.
“No!” I said with a gasp when I felt the satiny material slide over and wrap around my wrists. “N-no, stop. Please stop.”
“I’ve gone easy on you since you arrived. No more.” His last words were a growl, and then his weight was gone before he roughly forced me onto my knees. “You’ll learn your place here, Briar. You will learn that you’re mine.”
“Never. I will never be yours,” I spat against the comforter. My next words died in my throat when I saw him standing at the side of the bed in nothing but his jeans . . . and they were falling to the floor.
He was there suddenly, his hands flat on the edge of the bed, straining as they held his weight up, and his face so close to mine I knew I should’ve recoiled, but I didn’t move—couldn’t move. His breath was mixing with mine, and that traitorous part of me was craving more from him, and I hated myself for it.
His dark eyes pierced mine, mocking me as a wicked smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Never?” he asked, and a low laugh sounded in his chest when a shiver tore through me.
But then the humor and the taunting and the seduction . . . all of it was gone and was replaced by the cold indifference, and I found myself a breath away from pure darkness.
He leaned closer—his voice rumbled deep in his chest and his lips brushed along my ear when he growled, “Your denial stopped meaning anything the moment you begged me for more.”
“Don’t do this,” I pleaded one last time as he pushed away and stepped toward the foot of the bed in nothing but boxer briefs, but all the power had been sucked from my voice.
His voice was detached, lifeless when he repeated, “Fight me, Briar.”
Disgust rolled through me, and I forced my eyes closed and clenched my jaw so neither a song or plea for him to stop would leave my lips as he crawled between my legs. I didn’t move, and I stopped trying to free myself from the too-tight binds behind my back. If he wanted a fight, I refused to give him one.
But there was nothing.
No touch. No sound except for my breaths that slowly got heavier and shakier as I waited for what would come next. Because I had a sickening feeling I would prefer the previous lessons over what I had coming for me.
Still, I knew he was there. Even if it wasn’t for the weight of him at the end of the bed, I would have known. I could feel his presence in the room.
Heavy and dark. Sadistic and taunting.
As the seconds turned into minutes, my original fear of this lesson felt like nothing compared to what was paralyzing me now. It felt like something had taken my heart in its grasp and was slowly crushing it. It felt like I was gasping for air. My entire body was trembling, and there was no way to control it.
I wondered if he was enjoying my suffering.
I cried out when his hands suddenly gripped my hips and pulled me back, so I was pressed against him. Once I was settled there, he released me, but just as quickly his fingers trailed down my waist and over my hips. The tips of his fingers barely curled around the top of my underwear, moving them down a fraction of an inch.
Do not move.
Do not react.
He is darkness.
He is the devil.
I hate him.
The touch was soft and soothing, yet somehow strong and possessive, and soon he reversed his path. And I hated him for everything he was and for that touch . . . and for making me crave it more than I had anything in my life, when just seconds before, I’d waited in fear for when it would come.
My shirt was pushed up, each inch taking a lifetime, each inch sending my heart rate into chaos. He left the bunched material just below my breasts then began the agonizing process all over again. A small tremor began in my stomach when his fingers curled around the edge of my underwear again, but I fought to keep it contained and was disgusted with myself that it had been more out of anticipation than hate.
Do not move. Do not react. He is darkness. He is the devil, I chanted again.
Nothing. He would get nothing from me.
I hate—
My mouth opened with a nearly inaudible moan, and my pulse sped up when his large hands cupped my breasts as he exposed them.
Do not move. Do not—
“Don’t ever forget who this is for,” he said darkly as his hands slowly tightened. “Don’t ever forget that no matter how much you deny it, you are mine.”
My next breath was soft and broken, and felt like it shook the whole room. I’d known . . . I’d known it was coming, and I’d been stupid to forget. I’d been stupid to let him make me want his touch when he was just waiting to remind me who he really was and why we were here. What I’d been taken from.