Page 45 of Hunted to the Altar
“What are you doing?” I gasped against his chest.
“I’m making sure you don’t run on me again.” He bent me over the bed and pulled my arms above my head.
I struggled halfheartedly while he tied me down.Did he have rope in every room?I couldn’t help wondering. That was oddly kinky and not something I’d been expecting of him.
“I wasn’t running,” I protested. “I was just heading to the powder room.”
“At a full sprint?” he murmured in my ear, yanking the bonds tighter to make sure they were in place.
I felt a small smack on my ass as he chuckled. “I don’t even have to look into your eyes to know that you are lying to me. What were you really doing, little bunny?”
Caught, I snickered. “Antagonizing you.”
“Well, you gained my full attention. Let’s see if you like it, hmm.” He growled in my ear.
I whimpered as his hand slammed down on my ass again.
“Why did you run?” He groaned in my ear, grinding his erection into me.
“I just wanted to play,” I cried out.
He smacked my ass a few more times. “Then ask and I will provide what you need when you need it.”
Tears pricked my eyes even though I knew he could’ve punished me worse. “Y-yes, sir.”
“Who do you belong to?” He spanked me harder, ramping up the intensity of his punishment.
“Y-you,” I stammered breathlessly, the fight all but knocked out of me.
“There, was that so hard?” He soothed my stinging ass by rubbing a large hand up and down my cheeks before helping me stand and fixing my clothes.
“Yes,” I grumbled. I didn’t want to act like a petulant child, but I was sick of him getting the upper hand.
“Don’t forget it,” he warned.
I nodded my agreement. Samuel pulled me toward the dance floor even though I didn’t feel I was ready and wished we could’ve stayed in that room longer. But Samuel would be missed and we didn’t need people looking for him.
His possessive hold made me feel things deep inside that I shouldn’t for a man like him. The way he held me close. His scent. I couldn’t help falling under his spell as we swayed. I couldn’t help myself, I stopped thinking as he spun me slowly in his arms.
The bass faded into something softer, slower—something meant for bodies that didn’t know how to touch without meaning it. And I hated how easily mine responded to his.
Samuel’s hand slid to the small of my back, drawing me in with the kind of ease that shouldn’t have belonged to a man like him. Not after everything. Not after the fear, the stalking, the silence that had wrapped around us like barbed wire.
But in that moment, I let him.
Not because I trusted him.
Because I didn’t know what it meant that he felt like gravity when the rest of the world had stopped holding me up.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I whispered, unsure if I meant the dance or everything that led us here.
“I know,” he said, voice low, almost too gentle. “But youdidn’t ask to be hunted either. And I didn’t ask to need you this much.”
His confession was quiet. Raw. Like he was offering it up with a knife against his own throat.
Our bodies moved in slow circles. My breath caught every time his thigh brushed mine, every time his lips hovered near my temple like he wanted to press a kiss there but didn’t dare. His touch didn’t burn—it unsettled me in a different way. Like I was waiting to be caught in a fall I didn’t remember stepping into.
I didn’t want to feel this.
