Beta Read online

Why did I think that? Why? I’d just rescued him—why would I need to restrain him?

  His inhalation turned to a kiss, lips sliding across my skin. I went stone still, hands at my sides, fear churning in my gut. Was this my Roth kissing me? Or was it the leering beast from the car that’d looked at me like he wanted to eat me? I wanted to kiss him, to remind him who I was, who we were. I touched his jaw, lifted his face.

  “Roth?” I searched his eyes.

  The next few seconds happened in a blur too fast to comprehend. Somehow, I was on the bed and Roth was ripping my shirt apart, baring my bra, which he tugged down, bending and kissing my breasts as his hands jerked at my pants, the button fly and the zipper.

  “Roth, wait—”

  He didn’t wait. My pants were off, the pistol thumping to the floor beside the bed, and he was above me, handcuff bracelets cold against my forearms. His hands were on my wrists, pinning me. He’d shed the borrowed pants at some point, was naked now.

  “Kyrie…goddamn, Kyrie. It’s you. I can smell you. I can taste you. You’re you. You’re really you. I dreamed you once, but it was her,” he growled in my ear, and I whimpered at the mad hunger in his voice.

  “Roth, baby, let me up, okay?”

  I was lost in the terrifying juxtaposition of sensations. I loved being beneath Roth, I loved the feel of his body hot and hard and huge over mine, I loved the smell of his skin and the strength in his hands and the press of his cock against my core just before he pushed in. I loved all that, cherished it, and needed it.

  But this?

  This wasn’t that. This was madness. Drug-induced insanity. A crazed need he couldn’t control, and he wasn’t listening to me as I whimpered, as I struggled against his crushing grip on my wrists, fighting panic as I struggled against him.

  “Let go, Valentine,” I whispered. I lifted up and put my mouth to his ear. “Let me go. Please. ”

  He pulled back and looked down at me, his eyes wide and mad and dark and alien. “I need—I need this. ”

  I shook my head, managed to get a wrist free. I touched his cheek, fighting tears. “Not like this, Valentine. Please. ” I pushed at his chest, gently, delicately, pleadingly.

  He was shaking all over. Warring within himself. I felt him at my entrance, and in this moment, with this Roth, I wanted to press my thighs closed to him, and that made tears leak out. His hips flexed, his eyes narrowing, jaw clenching, and I felt him slide in a little, his broad head parting me just slightly.

  My breath came in gasps. “Roth, no. No. Not like this. This isn’t you. Please, Roth. ”

  He growled, his lips curling into a rictus, his eyes squeezing shut. I felt him shaking all over, felt him tensed tighter than a guitar string, every sinew and muscle rock hard. With what seemed to be a physically painful effort, a supreme exertion of will over his body, he moved just enough that I could scramble out from beneath him. He flopped to the mattress and twisted onto his back.

  Page 24

 

  And then, with a supreme effort of will, he took the end of the handcuffs and clicked them around the rails of the bed frame, one and then the other.

  Knowing what he’d been subjected to, I couldn’t escape the enormity of what he’d just done—for me, to protect me from himself—by voluntarily handcuffing himself to the bed.

  “Kyrie. Kyrie. ” His voice broke. “Don’t—please—don’t leave me, Kyrie. Don’t leave. ”

  I was crying in earnest now, barely able to see through the tears. I stood beside the bed, watching blood stream down his wrists. “Valentine. I’m here. ” I collapsed to my knees, rested my head on the pillow beside his. Put my palm to his feverish cheek.

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you. ”

  8

  TAMING THE MONSTER

  VALENTINE

  I fought the drug. Fought the madness. In the back of my head, I knew I’d almost done something unforgivable. But I couldn’t think of that. Not yet. I couldn’t think of anything but the pain, the pressure, and the wild need for touch, for flesh, for release, for sex. I needed sex. I needed release. It was a primal need.

  I cracked open an eye and saw Kyrie sitting on the floor beside the bed, naked but for her bra, tugged down to bare her breasts. “Go. Leave me. You shouldn’t see me like this. ”

  She was watching me, tears in her eyes. “I’m not leaving, Valentine. I won’t. ” She sniffled and wiped her eyes, then moved gingerly to sit near my feet. “Talk to me. I’m here. You can say anything. I love you. I know this isn’t you, this is—whatever she gave you. ”

  “A pill. ” I strained to touch her. “Something experimental. A libido enhancer. Not—not like Viagra. It doesn’t just make me hard, it makes me…need. God, that’s not—fuck, it hurts—‘need’ isn’t even close to a strong enough word. ”

  She stroked hair away from my eye with a tender finger. “Valentine…what can I do?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. ” I squeezed my eyes shut and rode the wave of boiling frantic ravenous hunger.

  I couldn’t bear to look at her. It was too hard, too much. She was so lovely, so beautiful, so lush. Her long, muscular, tanned legs, crossed to put her core in shadow. Her stomach, flat and firm yet cushioned with a layer of silken flesh. Her ribs, rippling into view as she shifted slightly. Her tits, spilling over the edge of her bra, a plain white utilitarian underwire bra, in that moment somehow the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. The bra was out of alignment, and she was too upset to adjust it. A hint of areola at her left boob teased me, had me growling and desperate to get my hands free, to rip the stupid garment away so I could see all of her perfect tits.

  “I can’t just sit here and—and watch you go crazy, Valentine. ”

  “Then don’t. Just go. Get the fuck out of here. ” I turned my head away and kept my eyes shut, waiting for the click of the door closing behind her.

  Instead, I felt the bed dip, felt her sit beside me. “Never. ” Her voice was low, hesitant. “I’m here, Valentine. I’m here. I love you. I still belong to you. I’m not leaving. ”

  “You have to—have to get away from me. It’s too much. You’re too much. I can fucking smell you, Kyrie. I can smell your sweat, and I—god, god—I can smell your pussy. I can practically taste your skin. Jesus, Kyrie. I’m so hard it hurts. ” I was writhing, pulling at the handcuffs, and for a second I was back in the bed waiting for Gina to take what she wanted, and I had to look at Kyrie, tried to remind myself I wasn’t there anymore.

  She was crying, silent tears trickling down her cheeks. “Let me help you. ”

  “How? How can you help me?” I didn’t dare open my eyes. If I looked at her, the need would overwhelm me.

  “Help…relieve the—the pressure. ”

  My eyes flicked open, and my gaze focused on Kyrie like a laser. “You’d do that? Even after what I…what I almost did?”

  Her face crumpled. “But you didn’t, Valentine. You didn’t. ”

  “I wanted to, though. ”

  “But you didn’t. ”

  A heated blast of desperate need billowed through me. I couldn’t breathe for the pressure, for the need, for the ache in my bones and my blood. Kyrie was sitting beside me, and I could smell her. I hadn’t exaggerated when I’d told her I could smell her pussy. My senses were attuned, honed by the drug, and as she shifted, I could smell her, perfume and musk and sweat and essence and all woman.

  I arched my spine, thrusting my chest upward, digging my heels into the mattress, tugging at the cuffs. Wildness, feral hunger, a driving furious thirst, my eyes on Kyrie. If I had her in reach, in this moment, there would be no force on earth that could stop me from taking her until I was sated.

  She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. I watched her throat move, and my mouth and lips ached to taste her skin, to kiss the column of her perfect throat.

  “Valentine?”

  “I need you,” I hissed, writhing on t
he bed.

  Her gaze shook, wavered, running up and down my body, tender and afraid all at once. “I love you, Valentine. ”

  She was waiting. I knew what she was waiting for. It was the farthest thing from my mind then, though. All I could think of was her, her body, her skin, her core hot and damp. The swell of her tits, the thick muscle of her thigh. Her soft, sweet, affectionate hands. I wanted her bare against me. I’d take it, if I could.

  Thank god I was shackled again.

  Her eyes filled with tears as I fought the demon inside me. She was still here. Even after the way I’d assaulted her and had barely managed to pull myself back, she was still here.

  “Love you, Kyrie. ” I growled it, teeth gritted past the pain of the handcuffs against which I struggled.

  She blew out a shaky breath, looked at the ceiling as if it held some secret strength. Took a deep breath, wiped at her face with both hands. Then she looked sideways at me. Her gaze was suddenly inscrutable, unknowable. There was a darkness in her eyes I couldn’t fathom, couldn’t decipher.

  Kyrie turned toward me, slowly, moving as if through water, her eyes never leaving mine. “I love you, Valentine Roth. Okay? I love you. Always. No matter what. ”

  Her hands slid onto my chest, palms flat against my pecs. And then she moved astride me, thighs gripping my waist. I blinked, blinked hard to clear the haunting vision-memory of a different woman in this same position, hands on my chest, core hovering over my abs, hair a curtain around her face. I blinked and heaved in a shuddering breath, jerked against the cuffs. Distorted reality twisted and resolved back into focus, showing me Kyrie in all her glory. She leaned back, sitting on me. Reaching up behind her back, she freed the clasp of her bra, setting it aside. She gazed down at me, an unknowable dark fury in her eyes.

  Page 25

 

  “This is for you, Valentine. Because I love you. Because you saved me. Because you’ve given me so much. ” She was breathing deeply, not panting but merely dragging deep, calming breaths in and letting them out slowly. “Do you know me? You see me? You feel me? You do, don’t you, Valentine?”

  “Kyrie…. ” It was all the reassurance I had to offer.

  It took every ounce of strength I possessed to keep still as she straddled me. Even more than it took to move off her earlier.

  “Do you love me, Valentine?” She seemed so desperate to hear it, to be reminded.

  I swallowed past the lump of emotion in my throat, past the raging chemical torment, aching to hold her in my hands, to kiss her skin, to taste the salt of her flesh, the sweet tang of the juices between her thighs. “Yes…fuck yes, Kyrie. So much. You don’t—ahhh, god help me…you don’t have to do this. ”

  “Yes, I do. I do. I can’t watch you endure this torture any longer. ”

  “That’s no reason. I’ll survive. I survived it once. Survived worse. I’ll be fine. ”

  That didn’t help her at all. She fell forward, fighting sobs. “God, Valentine. What did she do to you?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t revisit that. Not now. Not with Kyrie sitting on top of me. Not with this need inside me, not with the drug gripping me, shredding me, controlling me. Even making coherent sense with my words took effort, and to recount what I’d endured would wreck me. I needed strength for that, and I was weak in that moment.

  Another wave of boiling, magma-hot sexual fervor took me, sent a sheen of sweat coating me as I fought to keep still, to keep from thrusting upward. I could feel her, so close. So close. Her pussy was inches from my cock, sliding against my navel. All she had to do was lean forward just so and take me in, and I’d find relief.

  “Please, please…fuck, Kyrie…please…. ” I was begging. I couldn’t stop myself from pleading with her to take mercy on me. I was barely even aware of what I was saying.

  I had no control left, none. My body writhed and bucked beneath her, and she rode it out, lower lip caught between her teeth, eyes wavering and wet.

  And then…sweet Jesus…I felt her small warm gentle strong hand on my cock, and I knew her touch, knew even with my eyes closed the feel of her hand around me, and I breathed in deeply and let it out and soaked up the bliss of her touch, the glory of her body on top of me, tried furiously to block out everything else but the knowledge that this was Kyrie, my Kyrie. I knew her scent, knew the smell of her deodorant and the conditioner in her hair and the lotion on her skin, the way it all mixed together with her sweat and the unique indefinable scent of Kyrie-ness. I knew the feel of her thighs clenched around my hips, knew from the way she sucked in her breath and shifted forward that she was about to slide me inside her. I fought to hold still, to stop myself from driving up and in before she was ready, fought to let her do this, rather than take what I so badly needed. I growled in my throat and gritted my teeth until I thought my jaw would crack from the pressure.

  “Open your eyes, Valentine. Look at me as we do this. ” Her voice was low, barely a murmur, but it cut through me.

  I forced my eyelids to open, forced my gaze to hers. Eyes so blue, like polished sapphires, like the Aegean, locked on mine, love and affection and heated need of her own now warred with the darkness, with a deepening rage, with frantic misery. She knew. She knew just by looking at me, by my refusal to answer her question, what had been done to me. Perhaps not the details, but she knew.

  And she knew as well that this, what was happening in this moment, would change things between us. I wanted to beg her not to do this, to let me suffer. But such was my weakness that I couldn’t. Couldn’t.

  With a small sigh through parted lips, her bluest blue eyes on mine, Kyrie sat down on me, impaled herself on my cock. I groaned in relief, could have cried from the sweet familiar clenching wet warmth of her pussy around me. “God…Kyrie…oh god. You feel so good. Nothing…nothing has ever felt so good as you right now. ”

  She whimpered as she drove her ass down flush to my hips, filling herself with me. “Roth…my Valentine. ” Her eyes closed involuntarily, and her head dropped between her arms as she braced herself on my chest.

  “I love—I love—oh, oh god, Kyrie…I love you. ” It took everything I had in that moment to separate the insanity of need and glorious relief enough to make sense of my own mind, to get the words out for her.

  She sobbed and fell forward, clinging to my neck with desperate strength, almost choking me, writhing her hips in a slow undulation. “Roth. Roth. Roth. ”

  No one ever said my name the way she did. My last name, on her lips, during love like this, was a prayer, a whispered plea and a term of unfathomable endearment.

  “Kyrie. ”

  Wetness slid hot against my neck where her face was pressed into my flesh, the dampness of tears. Her mouth slid against my flesh, stuttered down to my chest, lips pressed in a kiss, held there for a moment as she lifted her hips to draw me out, her pussy sliding wet and slick against my throbbing, aching cock. Her hands held her weight on my shoulders, pushing me down into the bed.

  And she moved. Glided down, her ass to my hips, her pussy squeezing around me. Oh, I knew that, too, the way her muscles clenched around me, the way her breathing was coming in short gasps, the way her face scrunched up and her lips fell open. She was close.

  But she didn’t. She held it off. Sat down firmly on me, my dick buried deep inside her, and leaned back. Stared down at me. Debated something internally. She leaned to the side, grabbed her jeans off the floor and dug in the hip pocket, producing a small key.

  “No, Kyrie, don’t. I’m barely holding back—”

  She ignored me and inserted the key into the cuff around my wrist. The key turned in the lock, and, for the first time in I wasn’t sure how long, I was totally free. I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare look at my wrist. A twist, and my other hand was free as well. And then, just like that, the only thing keeping me in place was my own will.

  “I trust you, Valentine. ” She leaned over again, picked
up her T-shirt and ripped a length of cotton free from the hem, wrapped it gingerly around my wrist, around the burning, bleeding wounds, and then did the same for the other side. “I can’t handle seeing you handcuffed like this. It’s killing me, baby. ”

  “Kyrie…. ” I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, if I could make sense of the turbulence in my soul.

  Page 26

 

  My body was trembling, a coiled, tensed predator set to pounce on unsuspecting prey. I was a live wire, electrified, dangerous. More than anything, I desperately needed to move, to feel her sliding around me, to revel in the delirium of her body. But I didn’t dare move for fear of hurting her, for fear of letting the beast free. It was a beast, this chemical within me, a demon. It cared nothing for her, for me, for us. All it cared about was sexual release, the feverish animal desire, the hunger, the clash of bodies. But I cared. So I fought it.

  Until she bent forward and I felt the silk-soft brush of her breasts against my chest, felt the lightning strike of ravenous desire, a bolt of love so hot, so deep, so all-consuming, I couldn’t contain it. Couldn’t hold back, couldn’t do a single damned thing but thrust up into her, growling her name—

  “KYRIE—KYRIE—KYRIE…. ”

  —and move, move, move. My hands were alive, roaming her body, scouring her skin from nape to ass, shoulder to shoulder, touching her everywhere I could reach, caressing her knees and thighs and belly and ribs and waist and the contour of her arms and her cheeks, her lips, her forehead….

  I couldn’t stop touching her and thrusting, thrusting.

  But being beneath her, as I’d been beneath—

  With a curse, I sat up, needing to be in any other position. Kyrie sat up with me, wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck.

  Her lips touched the shell of my ear. “Valentine. It’s okay, love. It’s okay. Whatever you need. Do what you need to do. Take me how you need to take me. ” She rose, lifting herself up with her arms around my neck, drawing my cock nearly out of her pussy, hesitated, holding—holding—holding, and then she slammed down hard. “You know me, baby. You know how I like it. You know what I can take. I love you. I trust you. ”

  “God, Kyrie. I don’t deserve you. ” I had no idea where that came from, but it felt true, and it speared my heart, seared my soul.

  “Yes, you do. I’m yours. I’m here with you. I’m doing this willingly. I’m here because I want to be. You’re inside me because this is what I want. Take me. ” Her voice shook with emotion. “Take me, Valentine. ”

  I laid her down on her back, frantic, gasping, sweating, soul churning and body aching and heart crashing and melting. Her thick blonde hair splayed out on the white sheet of the bed, the blankets and comforter long since kicked aside. She kept her heels hooked around my waist, reached for me. I took a moment to absorb her beauty, to drink in the reality of her presence. So beautiful. So perfect. Lovely, delicate, strong.