Page 23 of The Hellkeeper

I watch as she gives her number to this new friend.

Something dark and possessive coils in my gut, but I force myself to breathe.

She’s allowed to have friends.

I want her to have friends.

Because at the end of the day, when she’s writhing under me, begging for my touch, I’ll be the only one who knows her the way she needs to be known.

She can make as many friends as she wants.

She’ll still belong to me.

When she sets my order in front of me, I don’t touch the food.

My appetite is singular.

I lift the cup of coffee, taking a slow sip, my eyes never leaving hers. The bitterness rolls over my tongue.

“Good,” I praise, licking a stray drop from my lip. “But I bet you’d taste better.”

She furrows her brows, her confusion almost adorable.

My poor, sheltered girl. She doesn’t even understand what I mean.

“What?”

“Don’t worry, little flower. You’ll learn soon enough.”

“Stop talking like that.”

“Like what? Like I want to spread you open on this table and bury my tongue so deep inside you, you’ll forget your own name?”

The horror in her eyes is delicious.

“No way.” She stumbles back a step.

I laugh, setting the cup down. She turns to flee again, but I’m faster, pressing a firm hand against her stomach, fingers resting just above the band of her apron.

“You grew up religious, didn’t you?” I coax. “A village full of good little girls and boys. Let me guess... they taught you that a man only takes his wife to bed to put a baby in her? That it happens in the dark, under the covers, over in seconds?” I chuckle darkly, my hand sliding just a little lower. Not touching where she’s aching, but close. “That won’t be us, Amelia.”

Her fingers twitch at her sides.

She wants to run.

She wants to stay.

“When I take you,” I whisper, “you’ll be spread out for me, bare in the light. My tongue will know every inch of you before my cock even touches you. I’ll make you beg for things you don’t even understand yet.”

“Enough,” she chokes out.

“Do you feel that, little flower?” I press just a bit firmer. “That pulse between your thighs? It’s me. You want my touch. And when I do touch you—” I inhale deeply, letting her scent fill my lungs. “—you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.”

Chapter Ten

Amelia

Ican’t believe this man. This monster.

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