There’s no control left. Just instinct. Heat. Hunger.

She grabs onto me, nails raking down my back.

I want her to mark me. Want to feel her teeth, her rage, her surrender all in one. We move together—rough, frantic, chasing something violent, something that isn’t soft or safe. We move like animals, desperate and raw, tearing each other apart, losing ourselves in the wreckage.

It should be meaningless.

But fuck, it isn’t.

The orgasm rips through me, a lightning bolt of pleasure, leaving me wrecked and breathless.

A hazy bliss I never let myself have.

My grip loosens, and my body sags against hers, not fighting for once. Just being. Feeling. Holding her.

She moves in my arms. Whatever she’s doing, I’m too out of it to care.

Until a sharp crack of pain explodes across my skull.

The world tilts. My vision goes black at the edges as I stumble back, my knees nearly giving out.

What the?—

She hit me.

I shake my head, trying to clear the daze, and through the haze of pleasure and pain, I see her.

She’s moving fast, yanking on her clothes with frantic hands, breathing hard. She takes my suit coat from where I’d thrown it over a chair and puts it on over her ripped shirt. Her gaze flicks to me, wary. She grabs her shoes and heads for the foyer. The elevator.

Rage and something else—something raw—burns through me.

I touch my head. Bleeding. I take an unsteady step forward.

“Ow!” She stops. “Fuck!” She looks down, mouth twisted in pain.

She stepped on glass, but she isn’t letting it stop her—she’s hopping on one foot now.

I blink, instincts flipping so fast it makes me dizzy. Before I can stop myself, I’m moving toward her.

She limps toward the door, but I’m there first. I sweep her up and carry her to the kitchen island, her body stiff in my arms.

She pounds on my chest. “Why can’t you just let me go?”

I don’t answer. Because I don’t fucking know.

Blood drips from her heel.

“Stay right there.” I grab the first aid kit stocked with everything from butterfly bandages to surgical sutures from under the sink. In my world, you learn to patch yourself up.

I set it on the expanse of granite beside her and pull outantiseptic, tweezers, and gauze. My movements are practiced, mechanical. I’ve stitched up bullet wounds in pitch-black basements with less than this.

“Is it bad? It feels deep,” she says.

“Not so bad,” I assure her.

“Okay.”

She’s not pulling away. That’s a start.