I will.

As long as I knew his face, I would track him down and ensure pain for my pain, despair for my despair. I didn’t even need to know his name.

Dipping his bread into the honey, he took a controlled bite. “If you behave and do what I ask, you’ll survive another day.”

I gave him the finger. “If this is my life, why would I want to survive another day? If you’re going to keep me down in the darkness, why the hell would I be nice to you?”

He stilled. His fingers wrapped around the bread until it broke into crumbs and scattered over the damp floor. “Are you forgetting who’s the guilty party in this mess?”

I kept my head high. “You. You are. You’re holding me prisoner.”

He glowered and discarded the crushed bread for his peach. He bit into it. Juice glistened on his lips as he licked them slowly. “I’m not going to repeat our circumstances. I’m not going to repeat how you were the one to enter without permission. You’re the one forcing me to gather double the food and fuel necessary for a long winter. You’re the one who’s demanding things of me I don’t have the capacity to give. You.” He pointed the dripping peach in my direction. “You’re the guilty one. All I’m trying to do is protect myself. I can’t let you go because you’ll talk. I can’t seem to kill you until I’ve had my fill. Whatever I do to you is entirely my right because you upended my world. You’ve ruined everything.”

He massaged his temples and shook his head as if scattering painful thoughts. Inhaling hard, he snapped, “If I can be nice enough to provide for you—all when I had no intention of ever sharing my home again—the least you can do is quit your fucking complaining, eat your goddamn food, and agree to do whatever I ask.”

I sucked in a breath.

It was the most he’d ever spoken to me. His voice shaking off the cobwebs of silence. His fury was a tangible thing, snaking through the air, caressing my arms, running hot fingers through my hair.

Tension crackled between us the longer we stayed locked in a stare. His body stiffened, coiling with power as if he were two heartbeats away from launching himself at me.

He was hard, tenting his slacks with obvious arousal.

His face once again held no masks or pretends. He was angry—almost as angry as I was. He was horny—a constant state for him, it seemed. And he was...sorry.

I gasped at the naked apology buried deep within his eyes.

He feels sorry for what he’s doing?

My lungs filled with fight. “Stop doing this. I see your guilt. If you feel sorry for the way you’re treating me, then—”

“Quiet,” he hissed. “I feel nothing.”

“You feel something.” I dropped my stare to his erection. “If you want me as badly as you seem to, then be nice to me. You can choose to be my friend instead of my enemy.”

He laughed—a tattered noise that sounded as if it’d been wrenched from bleeding memories. “I don’t have friends.”

“Did you hurt them?” I spread my arms wide at the empty mansion. The ivy-covered palace hidden deep within a valley. “Is that why no one lives with you? You killed any friends and family like you keep threatening to do with me?”

His muscles bunched into knots as rage coated his face. “I’d shut up if I were you.”

“If words are my only weapon, I’ll use all that I can, thanks.” Bracing myself, I asked, “What happened here? What happened to you? Who gave you those scars?”

For the first time, shutters slammed over his gaze, blocking me from reading him. His hands shook as he threw his plate against the wall, smashing the crockery and sending his untouched carrot and breadcrumbs flying. “Questions like that will hurt you far fucking worse than they’ll hurt me.” Any emotion he might be feeling—any ability at sniffing out his truth vanished as black hate blazed over his features.

My skin prickled with electricity.

My heart hiccupped.

The entire cell filled with war.

He was a stranger.

He was my jailer.

Yet in that raw, vicious moment, my body sprang to life. My core clenched to be filled. Wetness gathered from all the shadows that existed inside me. I’d had those shadows for far longer than I could remember. I wanted things that went against my wishes. The strangeness I’d felt all my life. The sense of searching for something—wanting danger and darkness that went against every rule of living a safe and normal existence.

I felt linked to him.

Connected in some awful, unthinkable way.

I was more in tune and aware of him than I had been with any other male.

And it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t right that I’d found such an intense physical reaction with someone who lived alone, looked like a forgotten castaway, and constantly threatened my right to live.

Why him?

Was I that starved of contact that I’d begun to seek it in cruelty instead of kindness? Was that why I hadn’t met anyone normal?

Because I wasn’t normal? Because I had a soul that was veined like granite. Light parts, black parts, quartz, and impurities combined.

Perhaps it was the tightrope of life and death I currently balanced on.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep and abundance of adrenaline—whatever my messed-up reasons, molten heat built between my legs.

His nostrils flared, and he swooped to his feet. A seam on his shirt ripped further as he jerked with need. Reaching for me, he grabbed my shoulders.

“Kneel.” His teeth flashed. His fingers bit into my skin, manhandling me from cross-legged to kneeling.

I fought him. “Let me go.”

“Kneel.” He pulled me forward, arranging me against my will. The moment I balanced on my knees, he tore at his fly, tearing the zipper down and popping the button. The slacks fell gratefully to his ankles, giving up their attempt at keeping him covered.

His bare cock did its best to stand to attention, thick with need and desire. However, his large size meant it hung heavy, stabbing into my chest instead of the ceiling. He quaked against the contact. His eyes hooded, and his voice turned into blackness itself. “Touch it.”

I scowled and rocked backward. “No.”

“No?” His eyebrows shot into his wild, roguish hair. “No is no longer an option for you. Do. What. I. Say.”

“Not until you give me sunlight.”

He groaned as a bead of pre-cum glistened on the tip. His hips thrust forward as his hands latched tighter around my shoulders, pulling me into him. “Suck me.”

I turned my head away, my hands landing on his thighs and pushing against his pulling. “No.”

“Do it!”

“No!” I strained to look up. Along his body to his eyes. His ripped and scarred body. His muscles etched beneath his shirt, his biceps threatening to shred the rest of the material dressing him.

With a savage growl, he ripped a hand off my shoulder and reached for his cock. For a fraction of a second, he wrapped his fist around himself and angled it closer to my unwilling mouth.

But then, he dropped himself as if he were laced in poison. He shook out his hand as his cock bobbed and his thighs clenched with dissatisfaction. His balls had drawn up so tight against his body, I couldn’t see them amongst his hair.

He shuddered and glanced at his hand again, almost as if he expected to see his skin being dissolved from daring to touch himself.

I froze.

What did that mean?

I could touch him, suck him, pleasure him, yet he couldn’t touch himself?

His tortured eyes met mine, no longer guarded by a shield but open for my rifling. Something terrible had happened to him. Beyond terrible. Something so painful, so intrinsically linked to self-pleasure that it’d forever destroyed his ability to masturbate.

I didn’t need to ask.

I knew.

And with a feral groan, he knew I knew.

He slapped me.