Primal Pursuit

It’s taking every ounce of self-control to keep a mask of indifference, not to let the hate through. He’s a cunning animal attuned to the slightest hint of emotion from his victims. If I allow just one of his senses to tingle in the wrong way, this game will be over even before it starts.

Our gazes are still locked as I lean down, the wood cold against my cheek. I can still feel his eyes on me, and it sends shivers skittering along my spine.

I don’t want to fuck him.

The idea is repellent no matter what he looks like and how he slides down into my crevices when I don’t want him to. No, I don’t want his hands on me if I can help it. But I want to hook him, use myself as bait, and have him caught up in a chase where I’m in control. And I want him to realize that when he’s too close and vulnerable, I’ll destroy him.

Kill him.

I close my eyes, and my skin sears hot as I hear footsteps coming closer.

Slow. Confident. Calculated footsteps.

It takes all the effort not to look.

Davian. It has to be. That assessment which slides fingers into my soul to finger fuck it, is the same as when we locked eyes, and he’s closer because that burn is hotter, the urge to turn stronger. Every nerve ending is electrified. Off the fucking charts.

I press my lips together, the anticipation gripping every muscle in my limbs. There’s no telling whether he picked a whip or flogger or chooses to use his palm instead. Something twisted in me hopes it’s a whip, my flesh already heated with anticipation. God, I’m nothing but sensation everywhere, the adrenaline heightening every little fucking emotion.

I feel a chill as his cold palm presses against my skin, rubbing small circles and eliciting an unfamiliar warmth. His thigh slides between mine, pressing them outward ashe leans in closer, his weight sending shockwaves through me. I can feel the air condense around us and smell the sweat of the people surrounded by it. His breath is hot on my ear, and my stomach tightens reflexively, but something about the scene has me paralyzed, yet I’m desperate to resist the urge to succumb to him.

“Who are you?” he murmurs against the shell of my ear, his voice a tenor of seduction I’ve never heard before. His hands slide over me with a roughness that makes my body quiver, his touch slipping from my waist down the taut line of my thigh. He seems to know like it’s written on a map. “Who are you, Rabbit?”

I swallow past the unwelcome desire. “The rules say we’re not allowed to disclose personal information.”

“I don’t care about the rules.”

“I do.”

“Then you’re no fun, and I’m losing interest.”

He shifts his thigh deeper between my legs, lifting my heels off the ground. “Who. Are. You?”

The last thing I want is to bore him. I need to keep him entertained, make sure his attention is on me and only me. “Jacinta,” I murmur, trying to tear my focus away from his touch, laced with a delicate burn. “Jacinta Harris.”

Abruptly, he’s gone, and I’m not allowed a moment of air when a strike comes down hard and sharp against my ass. The sound of it resonates through my body, and I shudder, almost bucking from the impact in a way that causes pleasure to ripple through me instead.

Another lash of leather follows. This one was meant to hurt. I can feel it from the force by which the leather bites into my skin. He’s whipping me harder than any otherElite has done to the others, proving this is just another one of his games. His way of finding prey worth hunting.

I grip the table’s edges, breathing as I steel myself, ready to play this wolf at his own game.

He strikes again, and I clench my jaw, refusing to whimper or move. The sharp sting quickly gives way to a blazing heat which lingers like a flame as he comes back around with the whip. I’m determined to show I can take whatever he gives and more, that I’m the perfect prey for him, but my body has a will of its own that leaps into action against my commands. While I try to fight it off, my pussy throbbing harder with each blow, the overpowering warmth burns and dazes me.

More punishing lashes follow, and I bite back the need to moan, leaning further into the table as my palms slick with sweat.

I suck in a breath when he presses his hand against my heated skin, trailing between my thighs as if testing for something.

Precisely calculated and sure of himself, Davian has unwavering confidence I can recognize in the way he touches me that sends a thrill up my spine with each stroke. It’s driving my body wild, beckoning a release I’m unwilling to allow. Because it’s him. It’s Davian Stark. The man I hate more than the devil himself. The man I’ve vowed to kill. But at this moment, I’m corruptible to his caresses and the pain that makes my body sing.

My hatred is a visceral buzz in my veins as he brings me ever closer to the brink of an ecstatic release that I can barely stand to contemplate. I loathe myself for feelingsomething so pleasurable at the hands of a man who deserves nothing but my disdain.

His whip bites into my flesh one more time, and I grit my teeth in silent, delicious agony. And I feel a familiar heat rising from my core and up my belly despite the pain. Just as it begins to peak, he slides his fingers inside me, dragging pleasure through my veins no matter how much I fight against it. My mind whirls with conflicting emotions — pain and pleasure fighting for dominance — and yet all I can do is choke back a scream, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing how my body betrayed me at his hand, pleasure spiraling through me in defeat.

He withdraws and pulls me up by my hair, a rush of air leaving my lungs as I wrap a hand around my throat, squeezing. “Did I say you could come, Rabbit?”

Fuck.“I…I didn’t.”

“Who are you?”