My heart is racing so fast, I’m sure it’ll tear out of my chest any moment. Adrenaline floods my system, and my rapid breaths are spurts of vaporized moisture as hot air collides with the winter chill. My bottom lip trembles from the cold, and I clutch my coat tighter against my chest, trying to run through inches of snow, icy tentacles slashing my naked legs. There was no time to pull on pants when I woke up to the sound of my bedroom door being unlocked. I slipped on a pair of boots and grabbed the first coat I could get my hands on when I realized someone had opened the door for me.
Mirabella. I know it was her. She promised she’d find a way to get me out of here.
It’s pitch black around me. I choose not to run down the driveway or any cobbled walkway. Too many lights would make it easier for me to be seen, so I dart through the trees, branches hidden beneath the snow crunching under my boots.
A chill licks the back of my neck, and I stop, holding my breath while glancing around, listening for even the faintest sound.
Footsteps. I can hear footsteps in the distance, and it’s closing in on me fast.
“Shit.” I change direction, running as fast as my feet can carry me, dodging tree branches as I look over my shoulder.
I catch a glimpse of movement behind me, and I know it’s him. I can feel it—the energy that has my heart racing even faster, the vein in my neck pulsing in a panicked rhythm.
“I know you’re out here, Leandra.”
It is him.
I slip in behind a tree and press my back flush against it, holding my breath and pulling my shoulders in, trying to make myself invisible. It’s dark, and the moon isn’t full tonight. Hopefully, the shadows will hide me well.
“You can run all you want. You know I’ll eventually catch you.”
I inhale quietly, listening, trying to calculate what my next move should be. Do I stay put? Do I run?
“Tell me, stray. How did you get out?”
I press my lips together.
“Did someone unlock the door for you?”
His footsteps crunch across the snow.
“Did that someone manage to distract Maximo so he would leave his post and give you the perfect opportunity to slip out?”
How did Mirabella do that? How did she get her brother out of the hall? Maximo knows how Mirabella feels about me being locked up. He knows she wants to help me get out; she’s tried many times but failed. So how did she do it this time?
“I can practically hear your thoughts going in overdrive, Leandra.” There’s amusement in his voice, and a shiver runs down my spine as I listen to him getting closer. “Did you really think it would be so easy for you to get out? That every security detail I had in place around you would all fail at the same damn time and give you the opportunity to run from me?”
Oh, God.
He tsks. “Surely you know me better than that. Look at the lengths I went to to make sure you can’t leave me.”
I flatten my palm on my belly, my breathing coming out in short, fiery bursts.
“Are you connecting the dots yet?”
It was him. He unlocked my bedroom door. He wanted me to run. Why? So he could hunt me down like I’m prey?
“You are, aren’t you?”
This is all a game. He started this because he craves the thrill of the chase, a predator who needs to sink his teeth into something he hasn’t tasted for a while.
Me.
There’s a sudden rush of excitement in my chest—heated desire rising inside me like the tide. I can’t help it. I can’t control it. No matter what he’s done, what I feel for him can’t be switched off. It’s still there, and it’s fucking with my head because now I no longer know if I want to escape…or if I want him to catch me.
God, I’m a mess, a pathetic heap of womanhood who still desires a man who lies and deceives as easily as he cuts through his meat at the dinner table. Effortlessly.
The sudden silence has me holding my breath, listening. His footsteps are gone. Silent. I can’t hear anything other than my heartbeat pulsing between my ears.
There’s that touch of awareness licking the back of my neck again. It’s him. He sees me. I can feel his heated gaze burning my skin.
I don’t think. I don’t analyze my odds of escaping.
I run.
Snow falls from the waiting branches, some landing on my collar and slipping inside my jacket. I gasp from the ice against my heated flesh but don’t stop running. I can’t. I don’t want to. Yet I don’t want to escape either. Not anymore. I want him to catch me, but also, I don’t. It’s a thrill I’ve never felt before—a charge of energy that runs rampant through my bones and down my core. It fuels me to run faster, to make sure I’m a prey worth hunting.
I weave through the trees and out into the open where snow hardly touches the well-manicured lawns of the estate. For a moment, I’m disoriented as I look in every direction, unsure where to go. The stars are visible here, glinting against the black night.
A strong arm grabs my waist, and I yelp as I’m pulled down to the ground, my knees scraping against the grass.
“Let me go!” I thrash against his hold, but it’s a futile attempt, and he easily clamps my arms above my head, his weight pinning me down.
Sapphire eyes burn with fiery excitement, specks of snow clinging to his dark hair creating a stark contrast against the backdrop of the night sky.
He flexes his hips, grinding his hard length against my thigh, his stare slipping to the nape of my neck. “You can’t get away from me, stray.”
“You planned this,” I grit out between clenched teeth.
“Of course I did.” He leans down, brushing his wet lips across my jaw. “You and I both know this is the shit we live for. The adrenaline. The rush. The fucking hunt that lets us unravel.”
My body quivers beneath him, and he moves, settling between my legs.
“I knew you’d run,” he rasps, tracing the tip of his tongue down my neck to the hollow below my throat. “I knew you’d let me chase you.”
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“Yet your body wants me anyway.” He grips my wrists in one hand and reaches down, unzipping his pants and pulling out his cock, dragging the velvet tip against my inner thigh before yanking my nightdress up my waist.
“Don’t,” I warn, but there’s zero conviction in my tone—and he hears it, his only response a sly grin that carries promises of sin.
“I’m serious, Alexius. Don’t you fucking touch me.” I try to break free from his grip, writhing beneath him, when he pulls my panties to the side and slips a finger inside me, the sensation causing me to arch my back and moan loudly.
“There she is.” He smirks, gazing down at me. “My filthy little slut whose cunt is always wet for her bastard husband’s cock.”
“Fuck you.”
“In a minute.”
Arrogant asshole.
His thumb finds my clit, and my pussy clenches around his finger. “You can run to the ends of the Earth, and I’ll still find you.” He leans down, brushing his lips along mine as he pushes a second finger into me, and my eyes roll closed. “Your body wants me, stray. And you’re wasting your time trying to fight it.”
“I can still try.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it. Fighting me makes your pussy taste so much sweeter.” He adds pressure on my clit, drawing circles, moving his fingers inside me, forcing my body into submission. “God, you’re beautiful like this. Ready and craving my cock.”
“Are you going to talk me to death or fuck me?” I challenge, bucking my hips, taking his fingers deeper.
A low growl vibrates up his throat, and he pulls his fingers out of me, leaving my pussy empty and needy, before driving into me with a sharp, hard thrust. I cry out, arching my back, the pressure between my legs both a punishment and pleasure.
“Am I giving you what you want, stray?” He’s breathless and fucking me hard with short, quick thrusts, hitting me deeply every time. “Is that greedy little pussy of yours happy now that I’m inside you?”
“Not even a little.” It’s a lie. But this is a game. One he started.
The grin on his face is cocky and sexy at the same time, his breathing growing louder and thicker, his pace rushed and relentless as he fucks me into the cold grass. He lets go of my wrists, but I keep my arms above my head as he folds his fingers around my throat, squeezing. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“My name.”
“Fuck you,” I bite out, and he lets out a breathy laugh, tightening his grip and restricting air from reaching my lungs. I gasp and claw at his hand, trying to pull it away, but he only fucks me harder, his fingers biting into my jugular.
“Say. It.”
“No.” The veins in my neck thicken under the pressure of his grip, but he doesn’t let go, and I don’t obey.
“Say my fucking name.”
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth.
“Jesus. I swear to God, woman, if you pass out, I won’t stop fucking you.”
The taste of blood bursts onto my tongue, and a frenzy takes over. Madness clamps down and takes possession of me, and it’s so fucking freeing. To not have to control myself anymore. To not be the one who makes the decision to succumb because my body leaves me no choice. The fire between us leaves us no choice.
Alexius lets go of my throat, hooks his arm underneath my knee, and jerks my leg up so he can bury himself deeper inside me. It hurts like this, deep and raw, but that’s how I crave it. That’s how I need it, and he knows that. He knows me and my body like I’m an instrument he’s mastered. Every touch, every kiss, every plunge of his cock is exactly how I need it to be.
His hand is on my throat again but snakes around to the back of my neck, his fingers fisting my hair as he forces me upward, our lips colliding in a heated kiss. A desperate one. A fusion of mouths selfishly wanting to devour the other. He tastes like whiskey and mint and something that’s uniquely him. It’s a taste I’ve come to love and crave, a taste that haunts my dreams and rules my nightmares. A taste that leaves me breathless for him…and only him.
Pleasure builds in my core, and it spreads down my legs and up my spine. “I have to come.”
“You know the rules,” he growls into my mouth.
“Please let me come.”
“Say my name first. Fucking scream it.” He fucks me faster. His rhythm is uncontrolled, his thrusts impossibly deep—a brutal display of unrestrained lust—and I can no longer stop it, my body quivering and pussy clenching his cock as an orgasm tears through me.
Abruptly, he tightens his grip in my hair, and my scalp stings, but no pain in the world can stop me from shattering. “Say it, goddamn you, woman!”
Pleasure sinks its teeth into me, ravishing me, consuming me to a point where I’m sure it would break me in half.
Alexius curses, then buries his face in the crook of my neck, his back arching as he comes inside me. I feel every throb, his hot cum spilling into me with every jerk of his cock.
Why did I even try to deny it? Why did I try to fight him? It’s useless. I know that now. This man can be the evil hiding behind everything that’s wrong in this world, and I’d still want him. I’d still love him. Because somewhere between marrying him and him tricking me into becoming pregnant, we became one. And now I realize that nothing can change that. Nothing can split us back in two.
Nothing.
I close my eyes, and loll my head to the side, spent and exhausted. I don’t want to fight it anymore. It hurts too much trying. So, I surrender with only one name on my lips. “Alexius.”
Then…I wake up.
