Page 117 of Black Castle

“Take off your fucking clothes, Vivienne!” A shiver goes down her spine, the way his tongue wraps around her name sending heat between her legs. And she has no idea what that makes her.

But wait, he wants her to strip? Right now? Right here? Is he insane?

She nervously glances around the large room, taking in her surroundings, and her eyes fall on the soldier again.

Glass makes up literally sixty percent of the living room they are standing in. Is she about to risk getting naked and giving some soldier a free view?

“I-” She shakes her head, forgetting when it comes to him, she is of little choice. “I can’t.”

“It wasn’t a request,” he says simply.

“B-but.”

“-Now!” The word hit her like a physical blow. Her fingers tremble as they reach for the button on her shirt, each pop of button sending her heart into a frantic, erratic rhythm.

Heat rises to her cheeks and her ears, rushing through her bloodstream in a dizzy wave. And the whole time, his eyes never leave her.

What passes between them in that moment isn’t just fear. It’s something else. Something raw. Something electric.

She fights him. She tells herself it’s because she abhors everything he stands for—his ruthless methods, his cold detachment, the very essence of who he is. But deep down, beneath the layers of defiance she clings to so desperately, there’s a truth she is too afraid to name.

She doesn’t fight because she wants to escape him. She fights because she craves the battle, the raw electricity of his dominance clashing with her resistance. It’s not him she wants. It’s the chaos he ignites in her—the intoxicating thrill of being overpowered, stripped of control, and forced to bend when every nerve in her body begs to resist. It’s a darkness she can’t admit to, a hunger she shouldn’t feel, yet it simmers beneath her skin, begging to be unleashed.

She loves the fear he instills in her and thrives in the danger his presence whispers. Her body lights up at the touch of his cruel hands, and in the depth of his darkness, all she sees are bursts of colors.

She is insane, you see. And perhaps, he is possibly right.

Chapter Thirty-five

Zev

You stink.”

Zev inhales the spot between Vivienne’s ear, the strange scents clinging to her skin makes his jaw tense.

His ladybird, ever defiant, glares at him, rage flickering in her eyes like a dying candlelight.

“You fucking reek of other men, Vivienne.” His lips brush against her ear, earning him a tiny little gasp, and he doesn’t have to look, her body betrays her before her mouth can say it.

His fingers close around her jaw, his thumb dragging across the red of her lips—smearing, tainting, marking. She jerks in resistance, trying to shake free of his grip, still latching onto defiance. But her pupils have already dilated, her breath quickening. He inhales again. Beneath the layered scent of men’s cologne, her arousal thickens in the air, suffocating him with its truth.

“You know I have to fix that, right?” His voice is velvet over steel, his hands slipping from her jaw to wrap around her neck. Perfect, as always. Like she was made to fit into his palm. It was as though, whoever created her, placed her life in his hands and told him to do whatever he wanted with it.

“Fix what?” Her voice comes out smaller than she intends, thick with need. Zev is sure that if not for the shred of pride she’s trying so hard to maintain, she would already be grinding into him by now, chasing friction.

His fingers flex around her throat, thumb stroking the delicate line of her artery.

“Fix the fact that you stink of other men.”

He has been choking on those scents since he picked her up from school—the sharp mix of at least ten different brands of men’s cologne clinging to her skin. One might belong to that little friend of hers. But the rest is a fucking provocative mess.

Heat licks beneath his skin, tilting something dangerous in his head. The thought of those men, their hands on her makes his fingers twitch with the urge to snap her neck. Fucking end Clement Baudin’s bloodline and have an impressive number of people call him a hero. A lot would love to know that the serial killer who took their loved ones’ lives has incurred a loss, too—his precious daughter.

But that will be a waste. There are just too many things he can make her do. Killing her won’t change anything.

“What the fuck?” Vivienne barely gets a word in before his hands knot in her curl, dragging her across the room. She screeches, her skinny arms flying over her head to claw off his hands, but he is already shoving her onto the open kitchen counter.

Her bare chest hit the polished surface with a dull thud, her nipple brushing over the cool wood.

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