I dropped the towel. I strode toward him bare. I stopped before him, suffering a full-body shiver at the heady heat rolling off him.

He didn’t touch me.

He looked as if he’d locked himself in place with shackles of invisible iron. “Free me.”

My heart somersaulted.

My inner battle for survival tangled with the ugly submission of giving in. Offering myself up verbally had been hard enough...willingly initiating sexual contact threatened to shove me back into the empty void from before.

“Do it,” he breathed, harsh and haggard. “Don’t and you’ll wish you obeyed.”

I looked up, fighting the urge to hide my body. “Do you...do you intend to touch me in return?”

I have to know.

Mentally, I had to prepare.

His jaw worked as his dark stare stroked my nakedness. “Make me come and you’re safe tonight.”

“And tomorrow?”

His lips thinned. “Tomorrow? Nothing is guaranteed.” Impatience etched his mouth. “Enough talking. You owe me. Do it.” His hips rocked, almost against his will. “Get it over with.”

Get it over with?

Another hint that sex for him wasn’t normal. “If you don’t want—”

“I want. I want the pain gone,” he muttered. “Now. Give me your goddamn hand.” Grabbing my wrist, he forced my trembling hand to press against his zipper.

The second my fingers made contact with his stiff arousal, he let me go. “Don’t stop.”

Just do it, Gem.

Freedom comes with a price.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I ordered my hand to obey, shaking and wary, dragging the zipper down.

He grunted as the fabric pressure on his cock vanished. The ruined slacks slipped down his legs to the floor. The muscles in his belly stood out in explicit detail, cords of strength and ridges of vitality.

No underwear.

I paused for a second, studying his erection just as he’d studied me. I’d tasted him, pleasured him. I knew his body before I knew his mind. The thicket of hair was as wild as the hair on his head. Untrimmed and unruly, hiding the balls drawn tight between his legs. And thanks to the lights gleaming above, I noticed something I hadn’t in my gloomy cell.

Scars existed on this part of his body, too.

Tiny snaking lines followed the thick arteries pumping blood into his cock. An awful tapestry of yet more pain he’d endured.

Was it self-inflicted?

Was it punishment?

Who is this man?

And why did he fill me with equal parts hate and the unfathomable need to nurture?

“Touch it,” he snarled, frustration thick in his throat.

I jumped from the spell I’d been put under, seeming to slip whenever I was too close to him. I cursed it. It shouldn’t happen. This was my enemy. My prison guard—

“Fuck, please—” He groaned as if his frustration had escalated to pitiful misery.

Once again, he scrambled me up.

Here was a man who didn’t hesitate to hurt me, who could kill me where I stood, yet...his beg was full of despair. It made me want to obey more than any threat he could utter.

He wanted to come via my hand.

He’d spared me the task of having him inside me. He said he wouldn’t touch me in return.

I was grateful for that.

I wouldn’t risk him deciding otherwise.

Taking a fortifying breath, I reached for his impressive length. The moment my fingers locked around his velvety girth, his head tipped back, and he collapsed against the wall behind him. “Fuck.”

Once again, he gave me everything. He put himself entirely into my hands as I stroked him from crown to stem.

He groaned long and low as I cupped his balls with my free hand, tugging down as I stroked up with my other.

I wouldn’t drag this out. He wanted to come? I’d make him release as quick as possible.

“Christ.” His forehead furrowed, and his eyes stayed shut, squeezed tight as if in agony and anguish. His hips thrust forward, pushing his heat through my fist, doing what he said and fucking my hand.

The wildness inside him sprang to the surface. A demonic forest dweller who followed no rules and found pleasure wherever the hell he wanted.

He thrust sharper, quicker into my palm.

I matched his pace.

I stroked and tugged, rolling my wrist and dragging my thumb over the slit already damp with pre-cum. His balls throbbed in my hands, growing hotter with every thrust.

It was wrong.

Very wrong.

Yet somehow, I felt powerful. I had a man quaking from my touch. A man who looked as if he could raze entire villages and challenge any other male to death if they came within sniffing distance.

His power transferred to me.

He gave it to me the entire time he shivered under my touch.

I squeezed him harder.

He buckled and thrust faster.

The chemistry between us deleted everything, leaving only misty lust and feverish shame.

“God, don’t stop. Don’t...fucking...stop.” His voice wasn’t human anymore, thick as bristled fur and black as midnight.

I stopped thinking.

I became his to use as he worked himself deeper and faster into my fist.

The muscles in his belly twitched into starker definition. His thighs bunched, and his hands landed in my hair as his lips opened in a feral grunt. His face was one tight grimace. His teeth sharp and features entirely primitive.

“Fuck...” His hair swung around his ears as he tipped his head forward and thrust a final time into my palm. “Fuuuuck!”

His fingers pulsed in my hair in time to the ribbons of cum jettisoning from the top of his cock. My hand grew sticky as the scent of his musk infiltrated the bathroom. On his last clench and jerky sigh, his forehead crashed against mine, and my heart stopped.

His lips sought for me.

His breath skated over my lips.

He dragged me closer by my hair, losing himself to the inevitable kiss.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t pull away.

I panicked at the thought of what a kiss from this man could mean.

At what it would do to me.

Don’t....

But as his lips almost touched mine, as the heat of his mouth seared my own, common sense slammed into him. He shoved me away so quickly, I tripped over my feet and skidded on my discarded towel.

Falling to my knees, I looked up at him. I blinked at the sudden change, then glanced down at the white threads of his seed all over my hand and wrist. I held evidence that he’d come undone, that the wild beast before me had granted me his power, even if it’d been for a few seconds.

He was about to kiss me...

Raw rage painted his face, killing all the passionate chaos inside him. Raking ten fingers through his hair, he blew out hard then ducked and wrenched up his slacks. He buttoned and zipped with quaking hands, almost as if being naked for longer than necessary was a sin he couldn’t commit.

It went against how I’d met him.

He’d worn nothing that day.

He’d run as if not wearing clothes was familiar and enjoyed.

He’d been a savage barbarian as much as a beast.

So why did he act as if I had no right to see him undressed now?

“Clean that up.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust at my cum-covered hand. “Once you’re done, join me in the bedroom.”

He stalked out before I could blink.