“That will take too long.” Wilder kneels before me, and I can see the shape of his erection pressing against his slacks—proof that he wants me trapped behind wool and buttons. He reaches back, lifting the leg of his pants to uncover the knife strapped to his ankle. He unsheathes the blade, and I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying out. He asks, “Do you ache like I do?”
Wilder draws the tip of the knife up my shinbone over my knee, not hard enough to cut skin, but with enough pressure to show me exactly how sharp the edge is. “Always.”
He follows the trail his lips made a moment ago, tracing the line of my pussy with the knife. It travels over the curve of my pelvic bone, around my belly button, and up my delicate stomach. He slips the tip of the blade under the strap confining my breasts. I hold my breath, digging my nails into the silk pillowcase. Goose feathers rustle under my attempt at composure, and the sheets bunch under our bodies. With one small flick of his wrist, the strap gives under the cutting edge, and I inhale.
“I think you knew exactly what you were doing when you wore this tonight,” Wilder says, moving to the next part of the harness. “I think you knew it would drive me crazy. Everything you do makes me fucking wild.”
Cutting the bra off one strap at a time, Wilder is slow and precise, careful not to pierce my flesh. Blood makes me weak, but I’d bleed for him. One by one, the belts around my chest fall away, and his eyes blacken as I lie bared.
“I wanted you to notice me.” The knife journeys around my pebbled nipple, and I expand my lungs just enough to pierce myself on the tip. A bead of blood turns silver metal red, and Wilder licks it away. He licks the tiny tear on my nipple like he licked the cut on his lip before turning the knife around in his palm. He presses the handle under my chin and tilts my face up, guiding my eyes up to his, dark and dangerous.
Wilder is a danger.
Under the forged smile reserved for outsiders is a tight-lipped warning. His strong handshake seconds as a deadly promise, and behind the blinding glimmer in his eyes are shadows, guiltless, menacing—possessive, ready and waiting for a fight.
Is this what happens when you’re raised among monsters?
Is that why this life calls to me? To Lydia?
Did we ever have a choice?
“Did I do that to you?” he asks roughly, trying but failing to keep his eyes on mine. His stare roams over my body, so open and willing to be wrecked by the knife in his hand and the impressive length in his pants. “Was I so convincing that you actually believe I don’t fucking worship you?”
“Why would you?”
He turns the blade right, working fast to cut my underwear off before driving the knife into the mattress beside my head. I cry out in fear, in anticipation, in yearning. It’s an unleashing of basic, primal need that leaves me panting and hot. He warned me to keep my hands to myself. He said he doesn’t want to hurt me. But this need hurts the most.
Closing my thighs around my hand, I cup my pussy and circle my clit, arching my back against the heat that moves through my body like an exploding sun. Wilder unbuttons his shirt from top to bottom. He yanks at his undershirt, stretching out the neck and breaking threads to get it off.
He pulls me to him from under my knees, and my swollen cunt rubs against his wool-covered length. I circle my hips for friction, but Wilder lowers himself over me. When our bare skin touches, chest to chest, heart to heart, tension melts away entirely.
“The first time I saw you was at the grocery store, right outside the brownie aisle.” He reaches between us to unbuckle his belt. “Your nose was bleeding, and my life would never be the same.”
He cradles his face between my hands, our eyes meeting as he lowers his forehead to mine.
“The next time I saw you was at the gala in that dress that looked made out of stars, like you carved out a piece of the universe, and I realized I couldn’t live without you.” He pushes his slacks down, unleashing his cock between my folds. My lips come apart, and I inhale his words as he says, “Later, when I’d had too much to drink and you still had sleep lines on your face, I knew I would never love anyone as much as I love you.”
“Wilder,” I plea.
“So, when you ask why.” The head of his length dips into my opening. Wilder grips the handle of the knife, still buried deep into the mattress beside my head, and he holds onto it as he thrusts all the way inside of me. “My only answer is how could I not worship every single thing about you?” He’s slow and deliberate, dropping to his elbow on one side and using the knife for leverage on the other. “And why are you so fucking determined to let me?”
I slide my hands down his sides and around his back, moving my fingers over flexing muscles like braille—reading him, learning the way every part of him moves. His shoulder blades come together as he strokes all the way into me, his grip hard around the knife like he’s hanging over the edge of a cliff. His stomach tightens when he pulls back, and I touch that, too, tracing the lines that together form a V.
Meeting him stroke for stroke, I hook my ankles around the back of his thighs and watch where our bodies meet—where I’m stretched out for him, around him. My eyes shift up to his, and I know exactly how I feel about the pout in his lips, the redness in his cheeks, and how his brows pinch together and soften. “Because I love you, too.”
Wilder’s eyes fall closed, and he drops his head between his shoulders, groaning in pain or in relief. Who knows? Who cares? It’s all the same with lives like ours.
Soon, he’s slamming into me, my thighs rippling against his with the force. The knife slices straight through the mattress, pulling feathers away with it. They stick to our sweaty skin and float on our frantic breaths. Wilder slides his free arm under my back and scoots me higher onto the bed. I cling to him, across his back and around his legs. We’re delirious and lurid, and when Wilder reaches back with the knife, driving it through my heart would be a mercy.
But he impales the blade into the headboard, roaring as sharp metal penetrates hardwood like he penetrates me. Wilder fucks me hard enough to lift my bottom off of the bed. He pulls out, and clutching the handle of the knife, he drives back inside, dragging me up and pushing, pushing, pushing until I break apart.
The knife stays true, carving a notch into the headboard, but holding steady even as Wilder uses it as an anchor between this world and one where we could go on like this forever.
He doesn’t let go until I’m crying out, and he shudders inside of me. When the only thing we can do is cling to each other, and feathers float on whispers.
I love you.
I love you.
