It was seeing her broken—the quiver in her voice, the bruises on her body, the blood from her mouth—that changed something in me. I’d pushed her buttons before, tortured her a little, fucked with her because she was mine, but this was different.
No one got to torture her but me.
No one got to mark her but me.
Izzy Hardy had been mine for a long time, but it took this kidnapping for me to realize it. My bracelet shined as if untouched on her wrist, but it hadn’t protected her. Nothing I’d done so far had protected her enough.
That was going to change.
“I’d corrupt the whole world for you. Have them bleed out and suffer for attempting to hurt you,” I murmured as our driver turned a corner to make it back to my place. I couldn’t take her home, where she needed to be, because they’d drugged her there, tainted the place she should have felt safe.
“I don’t want the world corrupted,” she replied. “I only need what you give me. A place to be free, a place to let go enough to be myself.”
I pulled her close, grabbed her thighs, and had her straddle me so I could kiss her gently, so I could hug her and smooth my hands over her back, like I needed to check her and make sure she was really with me.
I barked at our driver to stop and get her some food, never letting her move from my lap. I hand-fed her without a word. She opened her mouth and chewed every bite, staring at me with tears in her eyes. She needed nourishment. I made a promise to myself, as her lips brushed my fingers with each bite, that I’d nourish her for the rest of my life.
When she’d finished eating, she nestled into my neck and was asleep in seconds. I told the driver to go until I said stop. How I hadn’t given her love without fucking and torture before, I didn’t know. Because there, in that SUV, I fell in love with loving her. I wanted to fuck her slow, with the night’s city lights on her, and see how she melted into my gentle touch. I wanted her to feel safe and loved and treasured. I wanted to see the tears in her beautiful eyes. I wanted to see the love I felt for her right then in her eyes for me always.
After an hour or two had passed and she stirred, she peered up at me. “I have to get home. My cat’s probably scared and starving.”
“Bug is fine.” I cut her off. “She’s at your parents’ house. Does she always look at everyone like we’re stupid?”
Izzy snickered. “Yes.”
I readjusted my damn trousers because staring at her smiling, breathing her in, feeling her pussy so damn close, proved I couldn’t resist her even in the worst of times.
When her hips rolled into me, though, I growled. I met her gaze and found her biting her lip. “Izzy, don’t fuck with me right now.”
“I could have died, Cade. And if I’m starting over, maybe I’m not going to bury this feeling. Maybe I need to accept what I want right here and now.”
“You want this?” I narrowed my eyes, trying to make sure she could handle it. “Now? Because I’m still on edge, Izzy. Someone fucked with what was mine.”
“Show me I’m yours, then,” she said, her gaze unwavering as she leaned to press the partition button on the door.
I didn’t even wait for it to be all the way up. I couldn’t. I grabbed some of her hair and pulled her head back to expose her neck. I licked and bit every part of it before making my way to her mouth. I tasted the blood on her lips still, and my dick got harder as she ground her pussy there, riding my lap like her control was about to snap. “This is never going to happen again, Izzy. You’re my Untouchable, and I’ll destroy the world before they come near you again.”
She whispered okay over and over, but I was going to make her see. I spun her around so she was sitting on the seat, and I kneeled before her.
“Do you see me on my knees before you, dollface?” I rubbed my fingers over her and then I took my blade from my trousers. Opening it so that it pointed my way, I offered her the handle. “Hold it.”
The dried blood there was another symbol of what we’d done, what we were, and what I’d do for her. She held it out to me, pointed at my heart, and then I guided her closed fist and the handle to her pussy. I pressed it against her opening.
“Do you see my life in your hands?” I whispered. “Do you want to take it, knowing I put yours at risk?”
She shook her head, and her eyes sparkled. “I can’t take your life, Cade. Not when you gave me back mine.”
She couldn’t mean that. “I put you in danger.”
“The only danger was because of them. And now I’m only in danger of myself.” She said it softly, and I knew she didn’t want to admit it, maybe didn’t even want me to hear it.
“Dollface,” I tightened her grip on the handle. “Do you feel that? The power you hold in your hands? In your soul?”
No woman would ever have me in her grasp the way she did. Tears formed in her eyes, and it felt like my damn heart broke when she said, “What if I can’t be powerful enough, Cade? What if what they’ve done makes me relapse?”
I encircled her hand and moved the weapon’s handle against her. She whimpered as I pushed my chest into the pointed tip until I felt the prick and blood started to bleed through my shirt. I grabbed her jaw with my other hand. “Watch how we work, Izzy. You see us together here, holding this. It’s me making you feel everything, protecting you from the other side of destruction, and you holding my life in your hands. Me and you. We work.”
She was panting, riding the handle, and losing herself in it until she was wet enough for me to know she was ready for me. I turned the blade and slid it between her pussy and the shorts to cut them, then up the side so that they fell, tattered to the floor. Then I pocketed the knife so I could have my way with drinking her in.
“Ride my face, baby. And don’t stop until I tell you to.” I grabbed her neck, needing to own her, needing to feel the control of her life in my hands again.
I cut off her oxygen, and her pussy gushed as though she needed it just as bad. She clawed at my head, at my back, and wrapped her legs around me. I clenched that neck harder, and she pulled me even closer, like she wanted me to take her life, like I was the only one who deserved it.
When she came on my tongue, I just barely remembered to release my hold from her so she could gasp in air. I saw how the marks left would bruise, and I was ashamed to find I wanted to put more there. I unzipped my trousers and pulled my cock from them.
She spread her legs, holding my gaze, and murmured, “Fuck me hard, Cade. Make me feel alive.”
Her words caused something to break in me. I’d almost lost her, and it’d been my fault. I was supposed to be watching her every move. I was supposed to keep her safe, and she was only supposed to be in danger with me. Instead, my name, the company that I’d assigned her to, and the project I’d had her work on had almost taken her from me.
I thrust into her over and over again and emptied my seed inside her, hoping it’d never leave her body.
When we pulled up to my apartment, I tucked my suit jacket around her and swept her up like a baby to carry her into the building. Once we were inside, she walked around and took in the lack of decoration and interior design. It was an expensive place in a high-rise near Stonewood Enterprises with floor-to-ceiling windows onto the city. I didn’t turn on the lights; I let the moonlight fall on us instead. Her in those damn T-shirts with my windows as her backdrop was all I needed to see for the rest of my life, anyway.
“Do I get a tour?” she asked softly as she dragged a hand over the island counter. Then she saw the roses on it. “Someone get those for you?”
“I’ve had them delivered daily since the cabin. I needed a reminder of you.”
She hummed but didn’t say much else.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She stood there in that baggy shirt, dirt and dried blood splattered across it. “I’m a mess, huh?”
“I’d have you this way always if I could.”
“Then have me again.” She lifted a brow, and my dick jumped immediately. She needed rest, but I saw the hunger in her eyes, the way she was pushing herself to stay alive, to test her own limits.
“Let’s go to the shower.”
“You think I’m so fragile all of a sudden, Cade? You just killed a man in front of me, and I realized something during that time.” She strode over to my window. “I wonder if the city will know it too. If my family will accept it. Will people see that if you hadn’t slit his throat, I would have? That I have that in me? That I’m okay with having it in me all of a sudden? That I’m okay with every fucking emotion now?”
Jesus.
Hearing her say it out loud shouldn’t have made my cock hard immediately. Yet I loved Izzy when she was mad, loved when she embraced what she really wanted—and if that was killing an asshole, I probably would have sat there watching and smiling the whole time.
I came to stand behind her and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Are you ashamed of that?”
She sighed as she stared out at the city. “I think I’m coming to terms with it. I’m not all good. I’m different, and different’s okay. It’s what makes me who I am, and I need to be me.”
I nestled into her neck. “I’ll show you how good it will be for you, dollface. Let me take you to the shower.”
She turned her head to look up at me, those hazel eyes vibrant and alive, searching my features. “Why? I want the world to see you taking me like this. Dirty and a mess. Raw and different and ready.”
She took her time taking her tattered shirt off, sliding it inch by inch over her body before dropping it on the floor. The moonlight shone on her curves and had me memorizing every shadow and highlight.
I fucked her with the city as my backdrop and wondered if it’d be enough to show them that she belonged to me.
Then I fucked her slow into the night, made love to her, and told her she was mine forever. I meant it. I lay awake figuring out how to make it all right, how to make sure she was never taken again, how to make sure she’d always be mine.
Did I deserve for her to be mine when I knew deep down I’d always be some sort of danger to her? Someone would always have it out for me and my family.
I found that I loved her, and that meant I had to determine whether I loved her enough to let her go.
