I couldn’t catch a breath as heat filled my heart.

A heat filled with knowing that she was right about our connection. That it burned bright, despite our war. That it was more powerful than the both of us.

The longer we stayed together, the harder it would be to undo. Even now, pieces of me were being erased—for good this time, not just behind a wall I hastily erected. It erased fragments of the cruelty inside me, the distrust, the violence, the heavily conditioned boy who knew death better than he knew living.

For a single heartbeat, everything felt right.

Easy.

Peaceful.

God...peace.

She gave me peace after a lifetime of distress.

She gave me the silence I sought every second that I was awake. I didn’t need to run around the valley. I didn’t need to absorb myself in a book. I didn’t need to hide from the mania inside my mind.

All I had to do was look at her.

Be with her.

Sink inside her.

A sudden pain struck me in the temples, making me wince. My vision blacked out for a second, the weird vertigo I’d suffered from her striking me with the shovel returning.

The worst headache I’d ever felt came then faded, leaving me swaying and turned upside down.

What...what had I been thinking about?

I’d been...happy.

Something had made happiness grow in my heart.

But it was fading.

Popping.

Turning black and cold.

“Hey...are you alright?” Her touch landed on my thigh. A hesitant, wary touch from someone who recognized the man in front of her wasn’t entirely sane. “You blacked out for a second—”

“You concussed me,” I bit out. “I’ve had a headache ever since you hit me.”

She stiffened and turned prickly. “I wouldn’t have had to hit you if—” Inhaling hard, she forced herself to stay kind, giving me things I didn’t deserve. “Maybe sit back down. Have another chocolate—”

“Quiet.”

There was magic in this woman. Viperish magic that’d somehow twined around me while we’d been sitting in this car. I didn’t know how she’d done it, but she’d made me soft, made me vulnerable.

Never again.

Never again would I be taken advantage of.

She needed to be reminded of that.

Immediately.

Shutting my heart down, embracing the man I’d become after losing everything, I snarled, “Are you deliberately disobeying me? I said, kneel.” Grabbing the rope around her wrists, I jerked her forward.

“What? Stop! I was trying to help you—”

“I don’t need your help. I need your body. I need you to obey.”

“I’ll never obey a madman.”

I chuckled as she tumbled to the side. “I’m not mad, Gemma Ashford.” I manhandled her hips, twisting her until she landed on all fours. “I’m just not available for others to use anymore.”

“I’m not using you, you monster. You’re the one using me!”

“And you’re even more delicious than chocolate.”

I drank in the sight of her, falling forward onto her elbows, wrists locked together, her bare ass beckoning me. Her pussy still glistened from when I’d eaten her in the rain. The orgasms she’d denied both of us would still be there, waiting for me to finish.

She would give that to me.

It’s mine.

I ran a fingertip down her spine.

She quivered, a pained groan spilling from her lips. “Please...”

Her plea did terrible things to me.

I’d never wanted anyone so badly.

It gave me a dose of the power I’d briefly tasted.

“Tell me what you want.”

She scoffed. “What I want is the right to say no.”

“Truly?” Gently, ever so gently, I ran my fingers down the crack in her ass.

She shot forward, trying to get away. “Yes, truly!”

“Why do you want to say no to something you yourself admitted is out of our control?” Down, down, I slid my touch to her pussy, rubbing the wetness around her folds, dipping lower to her clit. “Doesn’t it burn when I touch you? Doesn’t your belly cramp and body clench for more?”

“Don’t throw my words back at me,” she groaned. Her back bowed. Her head fell forward, pressing against the rough carpet of the car. “Please...don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t admit that I can’t breathe without wanting to fuck you? Don’t confess that you’re doing things to me that I can’t seem to stop? Doesn’t that make you happy? Knowing that you’re not the only one screwed up by all of this?”

“God, you’re messing with my mind.”

“And you’re messing with mine.” I shook my head as the fog and unbalance from being struck in the skull returned. I felt strange. Loose. Burning up. “You’ve drawn my blood and bruised my bones, and you dare try to say no to me?”

“Fair’s fair.” She gasped as I swept my finger back to her entrance, dipping inside to my first knuckle. “Holy—”

“Fair’s fair?” I laughed coldly. “Nothing’s fair about this. You weren’t supposed to trespass on my fucking heart.”

Christ, what the hell?

The fog was crushing me, stealing control of my thoughts and mouth.

She shivered. “Is-is that true? Am I—”

“You’re mine. That’s all you need to know.”

“I belong to no one but me.”

“Yet here you are, bound, spread, dripping for my cock.”

“Don’t flatter—” she cried out as I pulsed my finger, teasing her “—yourself. My wetness doesn’t mean I want you.”

“Are you so sure about that?” I bent and licked my way around her hipbone, keeping my finger shallow in her pussy, making her crave, causing her inner muscles to flutter with greed.

“If you weren’t trapped, would you really kick me away? Knowing how good it feels when I fuck you? Knowing that I’ll pleasure you, worship you, make you come harder than you’ve ever come before?”

“This isn’t happening,” she moaned.

“I can assure you that it is.” I drove my finger in to the second knuckle, pulsing in her heat. “You’re soaking.”

“Oh, God.” Her entire body snapped up, then folded forward.

Her pussy clenched around my finger, the shockwave traveling through my hand, up my forearm, into my bloodstream, and directly to my cock.

I thickened to unbearable levels. Wetness oozed out the tip, starving for her.

Withdrawing my finger, I rubbed her clit again. “You want me.”

“You’re an asshole,” she moaned again, her words almost slurring.

“Asshole, huh?” Dipping my finger back into her pussy, this time, I didn’t stop at the first knuckle. I drove it inside her. Pushing, diving, feeding her the entire length.

Her reaction almost made me come.

Her hips shot backward, her knees slid wider, her back lowered until her ass jutted into the air. “Fuck you.” The curse came out more like a beseech.

“Christ, you’re beautiful.” My mouth watered, and my belly hungered. Concussion or not, this woman was my medicine and disease all in one.