Page 30 of Sweet Doe
The tension coils tighter between us. Her breath’s faster now. Her pupils are blown wide. I lean in, my mouth brushing close to her ear.
“You remember what it felt like, don’t you?” I whisper. “The way I touched you. The way I filled you. You remember how good it felt to finally give in.”
She’s trembling.
I smile.
“Eat up, little doe,” I say, pulling back just a little. “You’ll need your strength.”
She doesn’t speak.
But she keeps eating.
And that’s all the fucking permission I need.
Chapter Nine
SLOAN
Moonlight streams through the bedroom windows, casting everything in silvery shadows. Beside me, Asher sleeps deeply, his breathing slow and even. One arm is draped possessively across my waist, holding me against his warm body.
When he looked at me with those burning, needy eyes, I didn't resist.
I should have. I shouldn’t have let things go that far so quickly. But the look on his face consumed me, and when he touched me...
When he touched me, my body remembered everything we did on Christmas Eve and how he made me feel things I'd never experienced with Alex, things I didn't even know I was capable of feeling. And even though we’ve been through the murder… and the kidnapping… and the complete destruction of my life… those feelings are still there.
Stillreal.
Still dangerous as hell.
I shift carefully, trying not to wake him as I turn to study his face in the moonlight. Asleep, he looks at peace. The harsh lines are smoothed away. His dark hair falls across his forehead, and his lips are slightly parted as he breathes steadily.
He's beautiful, in the way that dangerous things often are. Beautiful and terrible and completely wrong for me in every possible way.
But my body doesn't care about the morality of the situation.
Except I'm not sure what this is anymore.
Because when he carried me to the bedroom an hour ago, when he laid me down on the soft sheets and looked at me like I was the most precious thing in the world, I wasn't thinking about survival. I wasn't planning my next move in this fucked up game we're playing.
I was just... feeling.Wanting. Responding to him in a way that scared the hell out of me.
And that's the problem.
I close my eyes, trying to sort through the chaos in my head. This was supposed to be manipulation. Psychologicalwarfaredesigned to make him trust me, to give me the opening I need to escape. But somewhere between the thoughtful gestures and the snowy setting and the way he whispered my name like a sin, the lines got blurred.
How much of tonight was performance, and how much was real?
How much of what I'm feeling is my own fucking strategy, and how much is actual attraction to a man actively working to destroy my life?
The questions circle through my mind, picking at my certainty until there's nothing left but confusion and self-doubt. Because the truth is, Ienjoyedit. Every touch, every kiss, every moment of pleasure he wrung from my willing body… I enjoyed all of it.
And that makes me sick.
What kind of person responds to her kidnapper like this? What kind of woman looks at a murderer and sees someone worth wanting? The rational part of my mind knows thattrauma does strange things to people, that survival instincts can manifest in unexpected ways. But knowing that doesn't make it easier to live with.
It doesn't make it easier to accept that part of me is starting to care about him.
