Page 49 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

I shake my head and fight back tears. “No. No, that’s not it. The first night we met, what happened between us… Sex isn’t always just sex.”

That was a Charity saying.Sex isn’t always just sex.Depending on her mood, the punchline changed.Sex can be power. Sex can be control. Sex can be a secret, a promise, condemnation or redemption.

What she never said is what I want to say now:Sex can be love. Sex can be hope.

I open my mouth to voice those words. But before I can, Phoenix snarls wordlessly. He seizes my wrists in his grasp and drags me over to the edge of the veranda. Then he swings me around so that I’m facing him and pushes me backwards against the balcony.

I scream, but immediately, his fingers are around my throat.

“Go ahead and scream, little lamb. But no one’s coming to save you,” he hisses in my face. “You want to know how much you mean to me? Why don’t I throw you over this fucking railing and show you?”

I tremble, unmoored by the rage displayed in his flawless face. He’s so beautiful, even in anger.

“Please, Phoenix…”

“You wanted the truth, Elyssa. This is the fucking truth. You are nothing to me.”

A tear slips from the corner of my eye. “Fine,” I whisper. “You want to throw me off the balcony. Then do it. What are you waiting for?”

I don’t miss the flash of surprise that darts across his eyes. His hands is painful around my throat, but I ignore it. He needs to rail at the world, and at the moment, I’m the only stand-in.

So I take his pain and make it my own.

“Or maybe you just want to kill me with your bare hands?” I ask. “That’s fine, too. Go ahead. Just get it over with.”

His eyes dim, but the rage simmers still. “I would,” he replies, “if I didn’t need you alive. But since you seem to need a fucking explanation, here it is: you and me are lies and deception and fucking sex. Not a goddamn thing more.”

He releases my throat and his hand glides down my body. He fists the skirt of my dress and lifts it up.

A few seconds later, I feel his fingers against my bare skin, riding his way up between my legs. I’ve never felt so exposed.

I’m still bent backwards over the balcony, but he gives me no opportunity to change position as he slips his fingers inside me.

“Ahh…!” I cry out.

“See?” he growls, in my ear. “You’re fucking wet. Because you know what I’m saying is true.”

I cry out again as he starts finger-fucking me. “Oh God…”

“Don’t call for him,” Phoenix whispers. “He can’t help you now. You’re trapped here with the devil.”

I cling to his wrist with both hands, trying to peel away his hand from my throat and failing miserably. The hum of pleasure between my legs is building and building—even when I’m trying desperately to clamp down on it. To make it stop. To prove that he’s a liar, that he’s wrong about this, that there’s more here than two bodies craving each other.

But I can’t.

I just can’t.

“You used me for protection. You manipulated your way into my home.”

His fingers circle my walls and I tighten around them involuntarily. My breath is coming in gasping spurts now.

“You used me again by claiming your child was mine.”

He’s brutal with me, sending alternating waves of pain and pleasure skirting through my spine until all I can do is latch onto him and pray that I’ll survive his fire.

“You’re trying to manipulate me again now. With lies and accusations.”

I can feel my wetness slick against his fingers. The smell of sex competes with the smell of salt in the air.

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