Page 189 of Shadowman
“You’regiving meyour last breath,” I snarl, sputtering and whimpering above him. “It’s theleastyou could do after all you’ve taken from me!”
“S-stop… p-please…” he croaks.
I can’t recognize his voice.
I don’t know why… he sounds… different.
Soft.
Helpless.
Innocent.
He’snotinnocent.He fucking ruined me!
They all did! They turned me into something I never wanted to be… Something I’ve been running from my whole bloody life!
“Trev… Trevel…” The hoarse voice is suddenly familiar. “You’re… h-hurting me…”
Despite knowing where I am and what I’m doing, certainty is melting away. Reality is falling, like the tears tumbling down my cheeks.
Manhattan, the penthouse, the soft linens… They’re fading into something else. And the body between my legs is no longer that of a pathetic rapist in his thirties with a beer-belly and a stupid fucking shamrock tattoo…
It’s one much stronger, wider and firmer. Smooth skin beneath my fingers that my lips remember kissing and sucking.
The feel of it brings me back fast. In a few flutters of my lashes, I’mawake, and I cansee…
Byron.
Oh, fuck, Byron.
“Fucking hell Jesus Christ,” I rush out, ragged and dripping with regret as I immediately release his throat.
I see the dragon tattoo. And the hickeys I left on him yesterday in the showers.
Oh God, what have I done?!
“Vi-violet…” he coughs out in between hauling deep breaths, his bare chest jumping.
Fuck me, my sweet fury…
What the hell is wrong with me??
Blinking and blinking, I claw back from the pit of my nightmares. My hands run tenderly down to his chest, tracing more purple marks from my mouth.
“I’m… s-sorry,” I stutter, choking back sobs the way he’s choking for oxygen. “Baby, I’m… I didn’t mean to…”
Collapsing on top of him, I tremble with guilt and residual fear. I’m in his bed, in prison. Starchy fabrics on a stiff mattress give me such an intense wave of relief and comfort, I can’t hold back my cries.
I’m not there… I’m here.
With Byron. My sweet, furious warrior… My Raphael.
“It’s okay…” he rasps, his voice even sexier after me nearly choking him to death. “You’re okay.”
His hands run up my thighs, brushing a pacifying touch over my ass and onto my hips as he clutches me to him. The feeling registers between my legs—where his hard body is resting—bringing attention to the stiffness trying to burst out of my skimpy knickers.
Sniffling, I graze my lips over his clavicle. “Byron…Fuck, why didn’t you stop me??Jesus…”
