Page 105 of Secrets of the Brother
I grabbed her jaw with my free hand. “Stop struggling,” I gritted out.
She breathed heavily through her clenched teeth as her gaze traveled wildly over my face.
The temperature had dropped dramatically. There was a cloud of gray, frozen air between us with each excited exhale, the stillness of the mountain forest settling on us like a wet, heavy blanket.
My brow furrowed. “Why would you do something so foolish?”
She refused to answer.
I tightened my grasp on her jaw. “Dammit, answer me. Why would you risk your life like this? You could have died! I could have…” I swallowed the sickening bile which rose in the back of my throat. “I could have lost you,” I shouted, unable to control my fear-fueled anger.
She struggled in my grasp. Wedging her forearms between our crushed bodies in an attempt to dislodge me. “I’m not yours to lose! I’m not yours!”
Her denial echoed off the cut rock face behind us, like a demoralizing Roman chorus.
I pressed my hips into hers. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever fucking say that.”
She threw back her head and screamed so loud the very trees seemed to tremble and shake with her denial. “I’m not yours!”
I slammed my mouth down on hers.
Her body twisted and kicked, but I held firm, forcing my tongue past her lips as I kept a grip on her jaw, pressing my fingers into her cheeks to prevent her from biting down.
It was a kiss. It was a show of ownership. A branding.
She pounded her small fists against my shoulders, but I refused to relent.
I tasted it all.
Her desperation.
Her anger.
Her fear.
Her love.
Her hatred.
I only softened the kiss when she ceased to fight me, submitting to me.
The moment I released her mouth, she leaned her forehead against my shoulder and let out a long, keening wail. She gripped the lapels of my suit jacket. “Please, Enzo. Please, I’m begging you. Please, I can’t do this anymore.”
She tilted her head back and stared up at me with tear-filled eyes.
“Please, just let me leave.”
CHAPTER27
BIANCA
He was a poisoned wine I was slowly killing myself with…sip by sip.
A delicious dark pain, like the sick pleasure you got from pressing on a bruise.
I had twisted and tangled myself in the chains that now bound me to him.
And I knew if I didn’t break free now, at this very minute, there would be no hope.
