Page 37 of Once Upon a Fable

“Stop.Touching. Me.”

Dropping his nose, he sniffed my throat. “It’s taking every inch of self-control not to do more than just touch you.” He shuddered and inhaled me again. “Fuck, it’s taking everything that I am.”

My hands scrambled for purchase on his chest, clawing at his scarred skin. I couldn’t push him off me. Ihatedthat I couldn’t move him. I’d always been strong—far stronger than many girls—yet shoving him did nothing.Nothing!

Furious frustration rippled down my spine. “Stop!”

His answer was a gentle lick of his tongue from my collarbone to my jaw.

I shivered and fought. “I. Said.Stop!”

“I should’ve killed you.” He pulled back. His eyes snared mine, too close to fully focus. “It would’ve been better for both of us.”

“Please—” I turned my head to the side. I didn’t want this. Despite theweapon I’d acknowledged and the belief that I could play tricks to earn my freedom, I knew now I wasn’t equipped.

I wasn’t brave enough to use sex as a way free. Sex was a landmine. Sex with him would eradicate all my rights, my freedoms, and my sanities.

If he took from me, he’d takeeverything.

He’d steal every scrap of who I was and leave me nothing in return.

His hips thrust against my belly.

He groaned through parted lips. His entire face went slack as if the sensation completely undid him.

Having him take pleasure from me without my consent—having himuseme when I’d said no made my skin crawl and my heart race and my bruised throat throb with injustice. “Stop.”

He grunted as his hips thrust deeper, driving my spine into the stone wall. “Fuck, I can’t.” It was as if something snapped inside him. “I can’t.” He drove against me again. “I won’t.”

He sounded wretched and afraid.

A direct contradiction to his overpowerment and abuse.

“God, you feel—” Throwing his head back, he thrust again, rolling his hips, forcing every hard inch of himself against me. “Oh,Christ.” He spasmed and let go, driving again and again, short and vicious, imprinting his heat, his need.

“Fuuuuck.”

He rutted a final time into me, his body bowing tight, his breath catching. His groan sounded eerily similar to the suffering creature from last night. The same animal that’d woken me up and made me wish to seek it out and put it out of its misery.

A sound that was bruised and broken.

He jerked as an orgasm shook him. He rode out the waves of pleasure.

I didn’t look at him.

Couldn’t stomach watching him come apart.

I’d met him when he was naked. And now, he climaxed while fully clothed. An enigma. A riddle. A stranger I was too afraid to figure out.

When he grunted a final time, his body switched from aggressive to almost apologetic. Stumbling away from me, he dragged both hands over his face.

I slid down the wall, hugging my shaking knees to my chest. A damp spot now existed on my belly, leaving behind his mark.

I hated him.

Hatedhim.

The front of his slacks was stained, and his body continued to jerk with pleasure as he dropped his hands and stared at me.