“Hush, baby. I’ve got you,” he said as he brushed the strands of my hair behind my ear. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
I heaved a sob and fisted my hand in his shirt. “I’m going to kill him. I want to kill him, Byron. I want to make him suffer like he made me and all those other people suffer.”
Hands held my face firmly and a sea of blue filled my gaze. “We can do that, Wilder. We can kill him. I’ll help you make him scream and beg for mercy until his last breath leaves his body.”
That was hot.
It shouldn’t have sounded hot. There was nothing sexy about the horrors I’d just witnessed but I was running on fury and adrenaline, rage and pain. “Ask me to run.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Byron
“What?” I was instantly on my feet.
Wilder pressed his lips against mine, devouring mine in a filthy, deep kiss, before pulling back to say, “Ask me to run. I know it’s ridiculous, but I need to make this feeling stop. I need to get out of my head.”
The tether was still in place, and I could feel all his chaos. It sang through my veins like pure fucking dopamine. Fine, if he wanted the predator. He was going to get him.
I took a step back and pulled my turtleneck over my head. “Are you sure? Because once this starts, nothing is going to make me stop. I will hunt you down and I will fuck you where I find you.”
His eyes roamed the expanse of my naked torso, lingering on his name etched into my chest. “I’m going to fight back.”
I pushed against his bottom lip with my thumb. “I fucking hope so, baby.”
Then I pulled the knife from the sheath in my waistband and stalked towards him. His breath hitched, his eyes were wild and his tongue darted out to wet his plump lips. Fuck, I wanted to bite them. I wanted to bite him everywhere.
“What are you—”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish his question. I sliced up the front of his jumper, the knife cutting through it like fucking butter. He hissed as the knife caught his skin and it left a thin slice up the centre of his chest.
Tiny beads of blood bloomed on his skin as he threw the shreds of his jumper onto the floor.
“Fuck, can I cut you again? Just once.” I wanted to be able to smell him in the air as I chased him down.
Wilder’s smile was wide andsalacious.“Sure thing, kitten, but it’s the only one I’ll let you get in for free.”
I palmed my cock through my trousers, trying to stave off the sudden orgasm threatening to rip through me.
“Come here,” Wilder cooed with a crook of his finger.
I stepped closer, and he wrapped his hand around mine—the one that was holding the knife—and pulled it towards his skin.
Fuck. Me.
Could this man be any more perfect?
“Cut me wherever you want,” Wilder said as he pressed the tip of the blade against his pec, but now I had a decision to make. Where to make the incision.
Decisions, decisions…
I slowly trailed the tip of the blade down his torso. I barely put any pressure behind it, but there was enough force that it left a thin, red line. I got to the meat of his abs, and as I reached the spot between his navel and hip, I held his eyes and together, we sliced through that pretty skin. It wasn’t deep enough to cause any real damage, but Wilder winced at the sting, and huffed out a short little gasp that brushed against my lips.
It tasted like one of the sweetest things…
“No magic. No potions. Just you and me. And I’ll give you a ten second head start,” I rasped, my voice all raw. Fuck, my restraint was thinning and any modicum of humanity I put on was falling away with every drop of Wilder’s blood that landed on the floor.
He took a step backwards. “Only ten?”