Page 75 of Seek Me Darling

And I feel myself falling into the space he’s carved out for me—this cage, this moment, this fuckingneed.

I’m done pretending I don’t want it.

I’m done pretending I don’t want them,him.

My voice scrapes up from the back of my throat, raw and reluctant. “Please.”

One word. One betrayal. One truth too ugly to hide.

Rule stills above me. The knife pauses just below my ribs, his body tensing as though that one word hit harder than any punch I’d landed in the fight.

His voice comes low, almost a whisper. "Say it again."

I grit my teeth, shame and heat choking me. My pride’s bleeding out somewhere between my thighs, and still—it pulses.

"Please," I force out again, quieter. More desperate.

"Please what?" he demands, calm as steel, the edge of control still in his voice even as the pressure in his body coils tighter. "Say it, Seanna. Beg me."

"Fuck you," I hiss—but it’s broken now, the venom hollow. “Please… fuck me. Just—do it already.”

He waits.

And the stillness strangles.

“Please,” I whisper again, voice cracking. “Please, Rule. I need it. I need you. I need—”

My throat closes. I can’t say it. But it’s already there, in my voice, in my body. Everything inside me is unraveling.

He hums, satisfied.

The knife vanishes from my skin, set gently on the forest floor beside us. His weight shifts, just long enough for him to reach into one of the deep side pockets of his pants.

I barely have time to breathe before there is rope unfurling like a viper in his hand. He doesn’t hesitate.

He binds my wrists together, tight and sure. Firm with no give. Then he pulls a steel spike from another pocket and drives it into the forest floor. Pinning the rope into the dirt, anchoring me in place.

I tug once, instinctively. There’s no escape.

Only then does he pick the knife back up.

He leans over me slowly, that maddening calm still clinging to every motion. The blade kisses my hip first—pressing just beneath the waistband of my pants.

Then itslices.

The sound of fabric tearing is obscene in the quiet between us. He cuts slowly, methodically, and occasionally—deliberately—slices through skin.

Little lines of red bloom across my thighs, my stomach, my ribs. Not deep..

But intentional.

He doesn’t just cut—he carves. Slow drags. Crosshatches. A series of shallow, deliberate slashes that sting and burn, every one a punctuation mark to my surrender.

My body arches without permission. Heat floods my core. The pain stings, electric and sharp—but it only drives the hunger deeper.

He drags the flat of the blade through one of the lines, collecting blood on the edge.

Then he brings it to my lips.

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