He shuddered again as I massaged his nape. His fists unclenched, splaying open as if I’d successfully destroyed all his resistance.

“Good?” I asked softly.

He didn’t answer. He just let me keep going, his shoulders sinking deeper, his jaw unclenching with every stroke of my fingers. I worked my way down his neck, across the tight knots in his shoulders.

Another shuddery, raspy exhale escaped him.

My stomach squeezed, amazed he was going along with this and actually seeming to enjoy it.

“God, you’re like stone,” I murmured, kneading along his shoulder. My fingers drifted lower, pressing along the dip where his chest met his collarbones. His body jerked, a tremor running through him.

My fingers ached as I tried to deliver perfect pressure. I lost myself to the rhythmic stroking, working my way along his pectorals, avoiding the silver metal implanted over his heart.

I didn’t notice that with every pass of my hands, I tipped closer. Didn’t pay attention that as my touch went lower—hunting out all the spots that made him shiver and groan—my body folded deeper over his to reach.

I just kept touching him, trying to ease whatever misery he felt.

My hands drifted from his torso to his biceps, feathering down again to knead his forearms, cursing the glint of silver around his wrists.

Each time I connected the blood bags to drain him, I couldn’t find a way to undo those awful cuffs. Which betraying board member had locked them on him? Forever leaving access to his veins with no way for him to stop it?

Anger flowed through me. I massaged harder, working his tight arms, utterly consumed with chasing out the fire beneath his skin.

My cheek pressed to his as I folded—

His arm shot from beneath my hand and snapped up. His fingers locked around my nape, jerking me down.

“W-Wait!”

His eyes snapped open as his head turned to face me. Our noses brushed. Our breath mingled. He looked like a man wrenched out of a dream and dumped straight into a nightmare.

He dragged me closer before I could protest, the movement fast and instinctive.

“Lucien—”

Something snapped in his stare. Black and lost and yearning.

His fingers flexed as if he wanted to strangle me but then...

Something broke.

Yanking me over the back of the couch, he caught me as I tumbled into his lap.

I cried out as I landed.

I gasped as he grabbed my cheeks.

And I moaned as his mouth crashed over mine with savage, unconscious hunger.

His fingers bruised my face as he kept me locked in place, utterly at his mercy.

He kissed me exquisitely hard, brutally hard.

Deep and devouring—blowing my one and only other kiss to smithereens.

His lips captured mine like he’d been starving for an eternity.

I clung to his shirt as his tongue plunged into my mouth. My entire sense of self was destroyed in an instant. He tasted like metal and fire and tragedy.

He growled low and primal, the sound vibrating through my bones.

He wasn’t gentle or hesitant; he was fierce and furious and hunted my soul like he wanted to destroy it.

Every shift of his lips and sweep of his tongue demanded ultimate surrender while every part of me begged for mercy.

My nails dug into his chest, feeling the hard planes of muscle beneath, his hammering heart matching mine.

He tore his mouth away, only to drag in a ragged breath before crashing back again—rougher, hungrier, desperate.

My pulse thudded, racing toward overload.

My body arched in his hold, no longer sure where he ended and I began.

His hips thrust up as he kissed me dangerously deep, rocking his hardness against my bottom as I lay like a bride on his lap.

One of his hands slid down to the base of my neck, his thumb brushing my throat.

I moaned—

He.

Froze.

His eyes flew open and the desperation that’d gotten us into this mess shattered, replaced by blackest horror.

With a primal grunt, he shoved me off him, severing our connection.

I landed in an undignified heap on the floor, my heart smashing against each rib as if it wanted to escape its prison and fall back into his arms.

I scrambled away, panting hard, bashing into the coffee table.

What was that?

What had he done?

What the hell happened?

Lucien sat forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He buried his face in his hands, his chest rising and falling as he sucked in lungfuls of air. His fingers flexed in his hairline like claws.

His chin tipped up, eyes glowing with fury. “How can you be so brazen...so shameless?”

“Shameless?” I blinked, trying to reboot my brain. “I don’t—”

“I told you I’ll never be with anyone in that way.”

“But...but you kissed me.”

“Get out,” he whispered, quietly, murderously.

Scrambling to my feet, I struggled to understand how I was at fault. “But—”

“LEAVE!”

Whisper leapt to his paws at Lucien’s roar.

My stress levels reached their limit, and I staggered.

I wanted to clear my name—to ensure this hadn’t gone irreversibly wrong, but I almost fainted there and then.

Lucien shot upright, clutching his chest as the metal disc beeped and flickered red. He grunted and almost fell to his knees. “GO! Get the fuck out of here!”

I fled.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

WHAT THE HELL DID I DO?

What sort of curse had she put on me to make me abandon my strict promise never to go near a woman in this nightmarish place?

The moment her fingers had touched me, I’d lost all control.

The first press of her thumbs on the cords of my neck made every nerve in my body seize. The soft kneading of her fingers along my shoulders eroded all my fight. And the delicious scratch of her fingernails over my scalp completely undid me.

I was used to agony—its bite, its burn, its never-ending misery.

But her?

Her touch had been different.

She touched me as a human, as a man, and not the commodity I’d been turned into.

She didn’t deliver conditioned and expected pain but foreign and unknown pleasure.

I hadn’t even known what pleasure was until that moment. Until that terrifying, horrifying, wonderful fucking moment where she’d draped over me and pressed her cheek to mine.

She was the first person to actually give me something with no strings, agendas, or expectations.

I couldn’t handle it.

I couldn’t accept it—far too conditioned to pay a price I could never afford.

My fingers strayed to my mouth, my lips still stinging from hers.

Every moment, of every day, I braced for pain.

I’d completely forgotten what it was like to breathe without wanting to howl. I lived in a constant clench against the scalding fire, but somehow, the longer she touched me, the quieter that pain became. My blood stopped burning. My bones stopped scorching.

Her touch chased every nightmare back into whatever hell they came from, and I couldn’t do it.

I’d grabbed her before I could think.

I’d turned my head before I could stop.

I’d kissed her with every drop of fear and betrayal, fury and agony I’d endured.

I hadn’t been gentle.

I’d been savage and desperate and drowning.

And for one impossible heartbeat, my imprisonment vanished. No fire. No agony. Just silence and peace and her.

Which fucking petrified me.

Standing in the shadows beneath a weeping willow in the grounds of Cinderkeep, I balled my hands and reinforced my decision never to get close to her again. No matter how much she made me feel, I couldn’t let down my guard.

Even if she wasn’t Marcus’s weapon.

Even if she was exactly what she said with no ulterior motives, I couldn’t find comfort in her because the only reason she was in here was to make me trip. To make me fall into pleasure and connection and ultimately sex, which would eventually lead to pregnancy because Marcus would’ve made damn sure every girl he tossed in here wasn’t on birth control.