My fingers twitch, the tips brushing the handle of the knife.
“You’ve been watching over me. Protecting me. Helping me. You might have told yourself it was for your own enjoyment, for your own fucked up reasons. But you care about me, Cole, I know you do. I’ve seen it. Maybe you don’t want to care. Maybe you’d like to kill me right now to stop it. But I don’t believe you will. Too much has happened between us. You’ve changed too much.”
Slowly, she slides the sleeves of her dress down her arms. Baring her delicate shoulders and her small, round breasts. She lets the dress drop all the way to her feet and steps out of it. She’s naked underneath, her body glistening under the light, the silver rings glinting in her nipples.
The wild garden runs down her right side, ending at the point of her hip. She wears it proudly, my mark on her skin.
And I wear hers: the white snake and the black. I thought the snakes were her and I, good and evil, locked in battle. Now I wonder if she meant them both to be me…
She takes another step toward me. Naked and unafraid.
I never get used to the sight of her body. The tightness of it, the wild energy that courses through it. The moment I touch her, that energy will pulse into me. Sliding my cock inside her would be like strapping into an electric chair.
Her eyes locked on mine, she says, “You won’t hurt me.”
Now it’s me who licks my lips.
Me whose voice comes out in harsh rasp as I say, “Are you willing to bet your life on that?”
Mara climbs up on the table, laying down beneath the light. She gazes upward, her tender body exposed and vulnerable.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she says.
The closer I get to her, the more I can smell her scent rising off that bare skin. It makes my heart race. My mouth water. Under the stark light, I see the veins running beneath her skin. All that warm, hot blood pumping fast with every beat of her heart.
I stoop and lift the restraints attached to the table legs.
Perhaps there is some mercy in me, because I hold up the manacle, giving her one last chance.
“Are you sure?”
She looks into my eyes, believing that she sees something there.
Then she holds out her wrist to me.
“I want you,” she says. “And you want me.”
I close the manacle around her wrist, hearing it lock in place.
“Now I have you,” I say.
30
Mara
The terror that surges through me as that manacle closes around my wrist is like nothing I’ve ever known. I’m Mia Wallace now—stabbed in the heart with pure adrenaline.
Every nerve fires up, my senses higher than they’ve ever been. I feel Cole’s breath flowing across my skin. I feel the heat of his hands long before they touch me.
He clamps my wrists down to the table, and then my ankles. Then, slowly, he turns a crank, winching my legs apart.
I gasp as the cool air hits my bare pussy. I want to shriek, I want to squirm, but I refuse do it. Cole is a predator. If I show the slightest hint of fear, it will ignite his instinct to hunt.
Cole looks down at me. He’s never looked more beautiful than in this dazzling light. He really is a dark angel, biblical in power and in wrath.
His gaze is locked on me and me alone. Those black eyes crawl over every inch of me, searing my skin. His upper lip tightens, baring his teeth.
“You know I watched the video of you fucking that guy,” he says, softly.
I hold his stare, unembarrassed. “That’s why I brought him to the studio. So you’d have to watch.”
“How many times do you think I watched that tape?”
I swallow hard. I hadn’t considered that he’d view it more than once.
“I don’t know.”
“Over a hundred, Mara. Over and over and over again.”
My skin goes cold, then flaming hot.
He strokes the hair back from my forehead with disturbing gentleness. “Why do you think I watched it so many times?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
I’m afraid the answer is he was stoking his fury against me. Already this encounter is taking a turn I didn’t predict, and it’s hard for me to remain calm.
“It was to learn,” Cole says, letting his fingers trail down the side of my face. “I watched it over and over to see what you like, Mara. To learn your preferences. This body of yours is so responsive . . .”
His fingers slide over my collarbone and down to the top of my breasts. My nipples stiffen, standing erect as if begging for his touch. Please, just a little closer . . .