Well … fuck.

His smile widens at the scowl I give him. “Don’t get used to it,” I say.

I can just make out his dimples in the dark when he laughs. He runs his hand through his hair and it falls back into place to skim his cheekbones in that perpetually disheveled way that makes my heart ache.

His smile fades. He leans closer to my center. A line of cool air flows from his pursed lips, teasing across my pussy. When I shiver, he leans back. “Maybe it’s time to be punished.”

I surge forward to grip the back of his neck with my hand, my face so close to his that his breath of a laugh floods my senses. “Nolan fucking Rhodes—”

“I sure hope you’re about to say ‘please’ when you tell me to eat your pussy.”

My lips clamp shut. I was definitely about to say something along the lines of “eat my pussy or I’ll cut you into ribbons of flesh,” no hint of a “please” in sight. And as he leans a little farther away, his hands braced on my thighs, I know he’ll toy with me if I don’t give him the one little word he wants.

“I thought you said you were going to take care of me,” I finally venture.

Nolan’s eyes track upward as though he’s digging through his memory, his expression pensive. “Actually, I suggested you should let someone take care of you. I never said that was going to be me.”

My chest feels like a burning pit of rage, and Nolan’s loving every minute of my descent into madness. “I truly hate you—”

“But …” he interjects, trailing a single finger up my inner thigh, crossing over to my pussy. With a long, slow stroke, he drags his touch through my arousal and then swirls his finger over my clit in a caress that’s far too gentle to be anything but a tease. “If you ask me nicely …”

“I …” Any protest I hoped to make dies on my tongue, my brain short-circuiting as he presses a little harder on my sensitive bud of nerves. His wolfish smile. The dark and dangerous shine in his eyes. He’s watching me like he knows he’s about to win. “Nolan Rhodes …”

He bats his long lashes at me in faux innocence. “Yes …?”

“Would you, pretty please with a cherry on top”—I lean closer, holding his eyes—“take your hand off my pussy?”

He swallows, and judging by the sudden pain that surfaces in his expression, it could have been blades that just passed down his throat. But he does so immediately, lifting his touch away from both my clit and my knee without delay.

It takes every last fraying thread of my self-control not to smile. If he was still touching me, surely he would feel the rush of my pulse as adrenaline surges in my veins.

I lean back. Spread my legs wider. “And put your face there instead so you can devour me,” I say.

I see the exact moment my words click together in his mind. With one blink, rejection turns to desperate hunger that burns even hotter than it did moments ago. He surges forward, his hands bracketing around my ass as he buries his face between my thighs.

And Nolan does exactly as I asked. He fucking devours me. He feasts as though he’s addicted to me. Like I’m the only thing that will keep him alive. He sucks on my clit hard until I buck in the swing and then he lavishes it with swirls of his tongue. He catches me between his teeth in a gentle bite and I yelp, fear and pleasure and just the slightest hint of pain an intoxicating mix that threatens to undo me.

“You know what I love?” he whispers as he pushes a finger into my pussy, curling it to stroke my inner walls. I let out a quivering moan. Another finger slides into my entrance, pumping in slow thrusts. “I love how much you get off on your fear of me. I give you a little whisper of it, maybe a little hint of pain, and you fucking soak my hand. When I slapped your ass and told you I would fuck you into oblivion, your pussy cinched so tight around my cock that I nearly came on the fucking spot.”

Nolan covers my clit with his mouth and works his fingers as his free hand withdraws the knife from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, the blade clicks free of the handle. He keeps his eyes on me as he touches the point to my outer thigh, dragging it gently over my skin, just hard enough to leave a mark. I whimper, my core clenching tight. And he laughs. Laughs right into my flesh as my arousal floods his hand.

“See?” he says, his face glistening in the moonlight as he withdraws his fingers to show them to me. They shine in the dim light. With a grin, he lays them on his waiting tongue and sucks the juices off. When he drags them free of his lips, he slides them back into my pussy to the sound of my shameless, shuddering moan. “Fucking delicious.”

This time when he buries his face between the apex of my thighs and groans with desire, I know he won’t stop until I’m falling apart. And he’s right. I am spellbound by the fear and the pain. With Nolan, I feel like I can reclaim them, like I can dictate the terms of what I’m willing to feel. He transforms terror and torture into alchemical pleasure.

It’s not the way he worships my clit, or slides his fingers in my pussy, or even drags the knife over my thigh that breaks me apart. It’s the realization that Nolan understands me in a way no one else can. And he’s taking care of me in a way that no one else ever will. He chases every second of my orgasm like he can see my epiphany unfurling like a night-blooming flower.

I’m shaking. Panting. My eyes are squeezed shut. My biceps burn from holding on to the chains of the swing. The blood rushing through my head is so loud that it muffles the sounds around me. Even the shuffle of fabric as Nolan shifts between my thighs.

In a sudden flash of movement, he pulls me from the swing and flips me over, trapping both my wrists behind my back in one of his calloused hands. The thin rubber is braced across my waist and my bare knees rest on the cool mulch.

He hastily pushes my skirt up and plunges his cock into my pussy with a single stroke.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he hisses as I let out an agonized cry of pleasure. He pulls back and thrusts, burying his cock even deeper in my channel. I can already feel a fresh wave of pleasure rolling through me. “You might have been sent from hell to torment me, but you feel just like heaven.”

I’m completely at his mercy. And he fucks me with none.

I love every second of it.

He grips my wrists tight and digs the fingers of his other hand into my hip until it aches. He picks up a rhythm of long strokes and uses the momentum of the swing to drive into me. I rock away from him as he glides out to the crown of his cock. He pulls me back and slams to the hilt. The pace quickens and I hear the pained restraint in the curses and praise and promises he whispers in the night.

“I’m going to fucking ruin this perfect pussy,” he says as the swell of another orgasm threatens to crash over me. “Next time I fuck you, you’re going to look into my face and I’m going to watch you fall apart. And then I’m going to fucking claim you, Harper Starling.”

I close my eyes, imagining everything he could mean with those words. Maybe he’ll make good on his fantasy to fuck me into the afterlife. Maybe he’ll slice my throat and fill me with cum as I shudder my dying breath. Or maybe he’ll choose a worse demise and take my heart instead. I’ve been trying to keep it safe in a cocoon of fear and promises. But he keeps pulling it apart. Shredding my defenses. One day, he might strip it right out of my chest, and I’m not sure that he’ll keep it safe if he does. That fate terrifies me more than any other.

“What if I claim you first?” I finally ask. My question breaks his cadence. He stalls, but only for a moment.

“You already have.”

His fingers dig into my hip and he picks up his rhythm and fucks me so hard I see flashes of light in the darkness of my closed eyes. I don’t just break apart. I shatter. I’m fragments and shards, mindless with pleasure. My core seems to coil tight with it, and Nolan suddenly roars behind me, slamming into me as he fills my pussy with his spend. I can feel him trembling as much as I am. I can hear his ragged exhalations, every breath as uneven as mine.