I struggled to keep my eyes open as my stomach fluttered and my quads tensed to granite. Her gaze locked with mine, clouding with desire.

Another groan erupted from my mouth as her fingers tightened, moving up and down in an endless rhythm determined to shatter my brain. “Tell me what you’re feeling, Fox.” Her grip twisted around my dick, adding a new sensation.

My eyes wanted to slam closed, but I didn’t dare lose myself completely. I might hurt her. I might kill her. “I can feel how hard I am. How much I want to f**k you.”

“No. Focus inside. What do you feel?”

Fuck, I didn’t like delving into feelings. And I sure as hell didn’t want to share them with Hazel.

“Do it.” Her hand cupped the tip of me, pressing down, swirling moisture that appeared from nowhere. Shooting stars and earthquakes took up residence in my stomach, needing to release.

“Oh, my God, woman. I’m going to come.”

Her grip immediately softened, letting the orgasm fade. “Not till you tell me how you feel.”

Goddammit. “I feel torn into pieces that will never fit together. I have so much inside, I just wish I could hit a reboot button and forget about everything until the second you started jerking me off. I was taught to ignore right and wrong. I’m a f**king mess.”

Her hand increased its pressure, rewarding me. “Do you want me to stop?” she murmured.

I wanted to say yes. Tell her it wasn’t safe, that she’d pushed me too hard, but I had no willpower left. None. Gone. Non-existent. “No.”

Her fingers wrapped harder, stroking me, pumping me. Blood flowered thicker, filling my c**k with an eager heat until I blazed for more. I shifted my hips, giving her better access. I wanted to be inside her. I couldn’t take much more of her possessive grip.

Zel didn’t move or touch me apart from my cock, and I was eternally grateful she kept her distance. But at the same time I was pissed off, annoyed, and wanted so badly to take control.

With her free hand, she inched the waist band of my trousers down my hips, never stopping her mind-bending stroking.

I raised my h*ps for her to pull the material off. Inch by inch, she slid the ruined trousers further. I didn’t care about her touching me. I didn’t care that more scars were on display.

All I cared about were the sparks and tingling tightness in my lower belly and dick. The conditioning lost its power over me. Everything ceased to exist but her.

The moment the trousers slid off my ankles, she knelt lower between my legs and squeezed. “I’m going to kiss you.”

My eyes shot wide, shattering the spell she’d put me under. The urge to grab her neck pulsed behind my eyes. I couldn’t handle her kissing me. I’d lose it.

“No. Don’t.”

Her tongue darted out, pink and wet. “Not on the lips,” she whispered. Her thumb caressed the highly sensitive tip of my cock, pressing against the hot flesh. “I’m going to kiss you. Here.”

Oh, my f**king God.

Never in my life had anything sounded so good. So f**king deliciously good. Never before had lips ever come close to that part of my anatomy.

I ceased to know how to speak. I nodded once, eyes wide, muscles tight.

She licked her lips, sending a thrill right through my heart.

The anticipation of her licking me, tonguing me, made my c**k lurch in her fingers. Dropping her eyes, she bent over. The anticipation was too much. I couldn’t suck in a proper breath.

I waited endlessly for the first sweep of her tongue.

But then she stopped.

Sitting upright, she released her hold on me. My heart bucked in my chest as she stood up and moved to the side of the bed where I’d placed the leather cuff.

Holding it up, she said, “I’m going to put this on you. I want to give you pleasure but I refuse if I can’t restrain you.” Her voice wobbled; her body flushed with lust, same as mine. Her eyes fell to my straining cock, standing stiff and hot and begging for her mouth. The connection between us throbbed with rightness. Whatever we were doing was perfect. Whatever she was doing was working. I was healing.

I nodded.

Without a word, she padded back and waited for me to put one arm against the metal tree headboard. Doing her best not to touch me while securing the leather, I risked everything by leaning forward and placing a simple kiss on a darkening bruise on her neck. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, breathing in her subtle scent of Lily of the valley.

She pulled away. “I know.” Disappearing into my wardrobe, she came back with a belt. Her eyebrow raised, looking at my other hand. I kept my palms curled, hiding the III tattooed in the centre.

I obediently placed my wrist against the bedhead, hissing as she straddled me, deliberately brushing her jean-clad pu**y against my extremely hard cock.

She tightened the belt before resuming her kneeling position between my splayed legs. Her hot breath tickled my upper thighs, and I didn’t know how much longer I could wait.

I wanted her mouth. Terribly.

“Tell me what you want,” she said softly.

I shook my head. It was one thing to accept what she wanted to give, but I couldn’t tell her what I wanted. Not after everything. I owed her more than I’d ever be able to repay.

“I want to hear you say it.” Her eyes flashed and her fingers squeezed me in warning.

A flush of heat threatened to paint my cheeks. After a lifetime of being told to forget about sex, she now wanted me to dive in and embrace it. Swallowing hard, I growled, “I want to feel your mouth around my cock. I want to feel your heat and hear you moan from my taste.”

Fuck me. I could’ve come just from talking dirty. It turned me on—sent comets exploding in my cock.

Zel smiled. “As you wish.”

Keeping eye contact, she bent over me, and without any warning, slid her hot, wet, exquisite mouth over the tip of my erection.

My world went from black to prismatic. I’d never felt such wonderment, such freedom, such deep seated primal happiness. My heart swelled; my limbs locked. I couldn’t focus on anything but her. Her. Her.

I groaned with gratefulness and thankfulness and joy. Her f**king amazing mouth sucked my length deep, deep inside. The swirl of her slippery tongue licked and adored, giving me no chance of remaining sane. I lost myself to Zel. I willingly gave everything to her.

“Like that?” she breathed against my lower belly. “Do you enjoy my tongue licking you, pleasuring you?” She trailed kisses from base to tip, always stroking.

I groaned, trembling with a mixture of furious conditioning and heavenly pleasure. “Yes. Fuck yes. Don’t stop.”

She laughed softly and descended once again. Her hand slid up and down, lubricated by saliva, feeling out of this world. A bonfire built deep in my balls.

I flinched, testing the restraints as Zel cupped me, massaging sensitive flesh. I couldn’t keep track of her mouth and fingers and touch.

My brain tried to revert into Ghost mode. My muscles shuddered with orders that would never be fully ignorable.

Then Zel swallowed my length and hummed. The vibrations smashed through my conditioning, bulldozed through my thoughts, and I regressed to a simple creature. A man chasing pleasure for the first time. An animal with the only intent of coming in this beautiful seraph’s throat.

The bed jangled and shook as I fought against the restraints. I wanted to touch her, thread my fingers through her hair and thrust into her mouth. I wanted to give her everything.

But the cuff and belt held me captive, leaving me completely at Zel’s mercy.

Her mouth sucked harder, dragging more and more fire into my groin. My spine tingled with need; my eyes snapped closed.

Zel was magic. She was a witch. I wanted to come forever.

The last of my undoing came in the form of her hair cascading onto my thigh. The tickling amplified my awareness of her hot, slippery mouth and her tongue swirled harder, building me faster, sending me hurtling toward the edge.

I had no choice but to let go.

I completely forgot who I was and the disaster my life had become and dropped all my walls to my soul.

I came like a f**king garden hose.

Spurt after spurt I jerked in her hold. She lapped up every thrust, swallowed every drop. No amount of prose or literature could describe the intensity, the visceral sublimity of my release.

It changed me. It gave me warmth for the very first time. It gave me f**king hope.

I opened my eyes as her tongue flicked out, washing me clean from the last of the most intense orgasm of my life. She’d taken a part of me into her. She’d completed the bond that I’d felt ever since I set eyes on her.

No one had made me feel like Zel. No one held me hostage like Zel.

She’d successfully done in ten minutes what I’d tried to do in two years.

She brought me back to life.

Chapter 11

Life has a way of lulling unsuspecting victims into a false sense of security. Providing answers to problems that seem too hard to fix. Giving love to combat loneliness. Sending a kind word in a moment of doubt.

But it was those moments that made you weak, and that was when life struck the hardest.

I thought in my naivety I’d found a way to help Fox. That I’d done the impossible and made progress with a man so psychologically damaged. I thought I’d find a cure for Clara thanks to Fox’s money. I thought so many happy, hopeful things.

But just like everything.

I was wrong.

A week passed after our fight and the unfortunate incident of Fox trying to strangle me. After seeing his na**d legs and sewing the stab wounds I inflicted, I’d hoped he’d get over his issue of clothing and nudity.

But not once did I see his legs again, or his chest or back or arms. I’d catch myself watching him, tracing his muscles beneath his black shirt, wishing I could touch and taste.

The longer he remained elusive, the more my mind went wild with what he kept hidden. What if he was so badly mutilated under the clothing that I’d burst into tears, grieving for a little boy who’d never had a hand laid on him in friendship or love? What if he hid something even more sinister?

The morning after our fight—after I made him break apart with my mouth—things changed between us. He accepted my need to return home in the evenings. And we silently agreed to start from scratch.

We never discussed the contract—we didn’t need to. As far as I was concerned, the agreement was void. What happened gave us something deeper than a piece of paper. Fox would still pay me, and I would still accept it for my daughter, but we’d evolved past exchanging one commodity for another.

We became friends.

A few days after the incident, I tried to change his bandages to inspect the stitches in his leg, but he flatly denied me and moved as if he had no injury. He was the master at masking pain.

As strange as it seemed, we understood each other and time moved forward. Fox knew I wouldn’t put up with his violence, and I knew he wouldn’t tolerate being touched.

It was a whole new world full of wanting and fearing.

During the day, I stayed with Fox. We explored his house, or went for walks in the semi-wild gardens around his property. He showed me how to help with the paperwork of Obsidian and most days I sat beside him at his desk filing receipts, sending out monthly invoices for membership, and offering suggestions on how to improve productivity.

Instead of being possessive of his company, Fox listened intensely, nodding to advice, and softly answering questions about the legal aspects of his club.

Our minds found even ground, laying the foundation for a topsy-turvy friendship that seethed with chemistry and need, but was never acted upon.

Fox opened his life to me—every avenue of his business, every account and password on his computer—but not once did he let me touch him, or ask anything about his past.

The smiles he gave were tinged with shadows; the laughs echoed with loneliness. My heart screamed for him to recognise the gift I wanted to give him. I wanted the honour of healing him. I wanted the joy of bringing him true happiness.

But it didn’t seem possible.

I’d catch him watching me as I bent over his books or walked silently by his side. His smoky eyes were so damn expressive he didn’t need words.

The message was loud and clear.

Why are you still here?

Why waste your time on me?

I’ll only destroy you.

I ignored those messages. I also ignored my own thoughts.

Lying in bed at night, listening to the soft breathing of Clara, I rifled through my feelings toward him.

I’d told him I hadn’t forgiven him for the bruises and terrible fear he’d instilled in me. Even though I lived a dangerous past, facing pain and not-so-perfect choices, I’d never been so petrified before. The thoughts running through my head when his fingers crushed my windpipe had been full of Clara. She’d never know how much I loved her. She’d never understand I’d do anything for her.

But then, thankfulness layered my horror. Thankful that I would die before my offspring—I wouldn’t have to see her wither and beg for help I couldn’t give.

Fox made me assess every inch of my life and I hated him for it. I didn’t think I’d ever truly get over what he’d done, but at the same time, he was the most real and unapologetic man I’d ever met.

Fox never told me where he went on the night he took me, but the bruises around his eye and cheek bone had faded to a muddy yellow. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to his joints clicking or his back creaking whenever he moved after sitting for a period of time. He sounded like an old tin solider badly in need of some oil.

At five p.m. every night, I would leave Fox and catch a taxi from his home to mine. He’d given me the one hundred thousand cash he promised, and I was able to afford another trial inhaler for Clara. He tried to drive me, but I flat-out refused. While I admitted I had a fondness for him, an insatiable need to fix him, and a craving for him physically, I was still afraid of what he was capable of. He was an undetonated hand-grenade, and I had no intention of letting him near Clara. He had his secrets, and I had mine. That was the way it had to be.