“I thought,” she pants, “you said I could earn forgiveness,” another pant, “on my knees?”

Before I can respond, her body starts to twitch. She’s close, and I wonder if maybe that’s the only thing she never faked with me, though I suppose I wouldn’t ever fucking know. Her movements grow jerky, body having lost all rhythm, and I move in one swift motion, taking her by surprise.

Because in one moment, she’s fucking my hand, and in the next, I’ve slammed her onto my cock and I’m bending forward to bite her shoulder. She screams when my fangs pierce her soft, ivory skin, but the sound is laced with pleasure.

Blood drips out of my mouth as I pull away to look at her.

We’re both so fucking messy in so many ways and god dammit if I never want it to stop.

Gwyn doesn’t even pause, continuing to ride my cock just as she rode my fingers. Knees planted on either side of me, sherocks her hips, taking me deep, and her clit rubs against my skin, giving her friction. It’s only a few seconds before her pussy squeezes me so tight, I can’t control the grunt that slips out of my mouth. She’s screaming my name as her body jerks violently, and I wrap my arms around her. My tongue glides across her chest, and I grab her hair at the nape of her neck, twisting her head just so I can whisper in her ear.

“The way I see it, sweetheart, you’re still on your knees.”

I don’t give her time to recover as I lift my hips and slam into her. Grabbing her ass, I drag her forward and back, tormenting her with the friction as I thrust with each backward push of her body.

“You don’t have to forgive me for you to kill me,” she says.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Blood dribbles down her chest from where I bit her, and I lean forward to clean it up. My hands roam over her body as I lick and kiss her chest, slowly moving up to drink from her neck once more. She rolls her hips and I grab handfuls of her ass, loving how soft and pliable her flesh is beneath my touch. There’s never been any awkwardness or hesitation between us, our bodies moving as if they were made for each other. I continue drinking, unable to stop. My thirst has been mild the last couple of weeks—except when I’m with her. The moment I scent Gwyn, my thirst becomes consuming. Ever since I drank from her to fight Emile’s command, I haven’t been able to get enough. It’s pathetic, but it’s a familiar ache that I’ve come to savor. I wonder if it’s masochism, a simple enjoyment of the pain because I deserve it after what I allowed her to do to me. I decide it must be because the alternative is that my desire for Gwyn is too strong. That the taste of her is too exquisite to give up.

“You’re such a dick,” she says. “Guess I’ll have to do it myself.”

And then she leans forward, bracing herself on the back of the couch. I use one hand to smack her ass as the other helps me guide her pretty pink nipple to my mouth.

She’s fucking me now, hard, and arching her back. The way she moves her hips and her fat ass is mesmerizing. She jerks her body, making her ass jiggle in my grasp as she takes me so deep I almost see stars. I swirl my tongue around her perfect nipple while I try not to come. Because now she’s making these little throaty sounds right in my ear, and I wonder if she does it on purpose to make me finish.

Quiet moans of pleasure ring in my ears as she slams her ass down on me. She’s so fucking perfect, and I wish I didn’t think that but goddamn it, there’s no one else like her.

I don’t think there ever will be.

And that’s what pisses me off most of all—because fuck her for being everything I could ever want, but nothing I can ever have.

This is the problem that I can’t wrap my head around. There is no fucking solution. I want her but I can’t have her. Not after I realized the difference between us. While we might’ve both sought vengeance for the murders of our loved ones, Gwyn took it farther than I ever would have gone.

Because I loved her.

Love her.

Hate her. Need her.

I begged my uncle on my knees. I took a beating from his men. I told her I loved her in that dark dungeon, and she never gave me the truth. She never gave me a single hint about what she intended to do.

Which means she never felt the same way I did.

She’s about to fall apart on my cock again, and I don’t try to stop myself from finishing. Letting her ride me, letting hersuck me off, is having the opposite effect from what I’d intended. She’s not clearing my head, she’s filling it with insanity.

Because how fucking dare she want me to kill her? I haven’t been biding my time at all, I realize. Every single thing I’ve thrown myself into the last few days have been mere distractions, shit I could fixate on to distract me from the fact I can’t kill her.

And the very idea that she might try to do it herself?

Fuck.

It enrages me.

Gwyn is so close I feel her pussy fluttering around me, and I reach up to grab her throat. I flip us onto the couch and loom over her. She reaches up, hands gently caressing my face, and I have to force myself to ignore it. Roughly, I position her legs to wrap around me. When I thrust into her, she bites her lips and her eyes roll back.

“Don’t stop,” she says between choked breaths. My grip on her throat makes it hard for her to breathe, but maybe that’s what she needs. Maybe that’s what she wants.