Page 40 of Hunting Gianna
She does, body locking up, every muscle trembling. She goes limp, arms wrenched behind her, mouth open, drooling on the cushion.
I pull out, jerk myself, and paint her back with my come. She shudders at the heat.
I untie her, collapse her onto the couch, and sit next to her. I’m breathing hard, my chest heaving.Such a perfect, perfect girl for me.
She curls into me, cheek on my thigh, hair a mess. I stroke her head, soft for once.
She’s so fucking innocent like this. Freshly fucked, taking what she wants and giving it in equal measure.
After a while, she looks up, dazed.
“Deal?” she asks, voice hoarse.
“Deal,” I say. “But remember, you’re mine now.”
She closes her eyes, but she’s smiling.
I watch her breathe, the bruises on her back, the new marks on her wrists.
I can’t say I saw this coming, but I don’t hate it.
“Come, let’s eat. Then we can nap before I take you back for dinner. I’m sure we can find something more suitable in the chest for you to wear.”
She looks up at me. “Like… a date?”
I shrug. “Sure. Like a date.”
It surprises me. The fact that Iwantto take her on a date.
But she deserves it.
If nothing else, she deserves all the good the world has to offer.
That I have to offer.
Chapter Thirteen
Gianna
Thenextthreehoursare the kind of limbo no one warns you about. After the messy, hard-won negotiation of our morning—after the groceries, the sex, the deal—I expected Knox to go full psycho or at least disappear to the shed and start dismembering squirrels as a hobby. Instead, he domesticates. He’s not a man who needs to fill the silence, but today he does. He starts tinkering around the cabin. He fixes the drawer that squeaks in the kitchen.
I watch him as I pretend to read on the couch. The book is nothing—just a prop, spine never cracked, pages smelling like sun-bleached paper and disappointment. The real show is watching him: the way his forearms flex under the white t-shirtwhen he tightens the screws, the smooth, graceful way he moves around the space, always aware of where I am, even when I think he isn’t. Sometimes he hums, but never a full song, just a threadbare melody that evaporates when I listen too hard.
It should freak me out. Maybe it does, but there’s something about it that relaxes the panic center in my brain. Maybe this is how hostages develop PTSD—a slow drip of ordinary kindness, almost accidental, until you’re rooting for your captor to make a perfect fucking omelet.
Every now and then, he’ll glance over at me, just a flicker, eyes the color of steel gone hot in a forge. If he catches me looking, he doesn’t smirk or preen. He just stares until I look away, flushed and pissed that I let myself get caught. I snap the book shut and cross the room to see what he’s doing.
He’s standing at the sink, arms braced on either side, staring out the window. The woods behind the cabin are full of mist and dripping leaves, the trees skeletonized against the dull sky. The faucet is running, splashing over a glass that’s already clean.
I hover. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge me, but I can feel the heat radiating off his body. It’s both an invitation and a dare. My mind says: get out while you can, idiot. My body says: just lean into him a little. See what happens.
So I do. I bump his hip with mine, just hard enough that water slops onto his hand and down onto the floor.
He looks down at me, one eyebrow up, and for a second we’re just two people in a kitchen, fucking with each other.
“You break it, you buy it,” I tease. My voice is thin but not as shaky as I expect.
“Not a thing in this place I can’t fix.” He says it like a threat and a promise, then shuts off the water and wipes his hands on a towel. “You want something?”
