Page 28 of The Vixen

“Do you only enjoy bossing me around while you’re humiliating me?” His voice is like silk. As if requesting sugar for his tea. “Does it spoil your fun if I ask for it?”

“I don’t hurt you for my enjoyment.”

He hums. “Tell me where to kiss you.”

“You aren’t aroused.”

“So?”

So.

I laugh, eyes opening to find him too close. Our foreheads nearly kiss while he fingers a strand of my hair and stares at my lips. Every exhale brushes across delicate pink flesh—somehow more fragile than a moment ago.

“So you’re playing me,” I say, voice even. Controlled. Despite the thread loosening inside.

“How could I be playing you if you know what I’m doing?”

“Idon’tknow what you’re doing.”

“Jesus, Luna, it’s just sex. You want it.Take it.”

“Why?”

Not:no.

Just: why.

He isn’t quick to answer. That flicker returns to his irises again, though this time it lingers. And it’s obvious.

Hatred.

My hair slips through his fingertips as he abandons the strand in favor of playing with my chin. Light at first, his thumbjust a whisper. Then harder as he pinches bone with his thumb and forefinger. He tilts my head even higher.

“Because you want to,” he says as if that could ever be reason enough. “And I want you to know what it’s like for someone to beg you to fuck them… then have the nerve to call you a rapist.”

A sigh drags from my lungs and flutters against his lips. Tension loosens in my shoulders. Not all the way. But noticeable.

“You want to be even.”

He gives the slightest dip of his chin, almost imperceptible. There’s no conflict in his expression. No sign of uncertainty. He knows what he wants.

Not desire.

Punishment.

It should be enough for me to say no.

But the burn I’ve felt for weeks, staring at my ceiling night after night takes a seat at the forefront of my mind. His phantom touch—too light to satisfy, too heavy to ignore. Lips peppering my thighs. Feeling desirable. Feeling wanted. Feelingsomething.

Father has always said the strongest of demons are purged by flesh. And only the purest can bear that cost.

Sawyer is anything but pure—but my father’s philosophy is flawed anyway. The demons are fed, not purged. And the cost is sin.

But unlike Sawyer, I don’t avoid guilt.

I just live with it.

“Then beg.”