“That night, before you sent me away, was the best night of my life. The marks you laced me with lasted a full week. Every time I looked in the mirror, or touched a bruise in the shower, I grew slick for you. You visited my dreams. I woke to aching wetness and an empty heart.”

My skin grew hot, remembering how many wet dreams I enjoyed under his brutal demands. I loved how his fingernails left faint scars on my ass. “Flashes of memories haunted me at the supermarket, at university. I could never escape you.”

He stopped pacing, his gorgeous, angled face frozen in need.

I tiptoed closer, murmuring, “I ached for you to dominate. I throbbed for you to f**k. I missed you. I missed the man I know is in there, but you never let me see.” I held up my wrist.

His eyes flashed down and he grabbed me, lightning quick. “Merde.”

I stifled a moan as fingers kissed the bird fluttering in its prison of barcode, whispering over the number fifty eight.

“Why?” His voice was tortured, wavering and gruff.

“Because you set me free.”

Eyes locked on mine, angry. “You’re insane. I warped your mind. After everything I did… everything you went through because I kept you. How can you speak such lies?”

I cupped his cheek, wincing as sparks zapped my fingertips. I couldn’t touch him without pain. It seemed only fitting.

“It’s not a lie. You showed me who I truly am.” My heart grew warm with steel and iron. “I’m strong enough to fight you. I want to give you everything, but only if you give me what I want in return.”

“You really are insane. I hurt you—you should run and never come back.” Fingers lassoed around my wrist, tugging me closer. “I’m not something you can tame. I’m not a man who will sprout poems and treat you nice. I’m. Not. That. Human.”

I swallowed hard, buffeted with Q’s temper and rage. “Did I ask for poems and niceties? No! If I wanted those, I would’ve stayed with Brax.”

Q froze, nostrils flaring. Hardness etched lines around his mouth. “Don’t mention that name to me again.” His icy cold voice scattered goosebumps on my spine.

I’m losing. He’s not seeing.

I slapped him.

My palm smacked satisfyingly against rugged five o’clock shadow. He reared back in shock, then his whole deposition crouched into hunter—killer—monster. “You go too far. Leave before you regret it.”

I wanted to stomp my foot like a child. Throw a terrible tantrum to get him to open his eyes. Forcing words between clenched teeth, I said, “I want you. I want your complexities, your shadows. I want your whips, and chains, and brutality. Listen to me! I’m willing to give you a slave who will never break, if you give me what I want in return.”

Q cocked his head, finally some shred of amazed compression glowed. “And what do you need in return?” he murmured, so close I breathed his question.

My body went from strong and defiant to fluttering and delicate. “I need you to care for me. Promise you’ll share your life and not shut me out. I want to know who Quincy is. I want to belong to Q. I want you to be honest with yourself that I mean something to you, too. Do you have that in you, Q? To care for me completely, so I can give you what you need?”

He dropped his head, suddenly nuzzling my neck. Hiding his thoughts and feeling in my blonde curls. “You’re asking for an impossibility. You’re asking me to love you.”

My heart squeezed at the pain in his voice. Eyes glowed with agony as he pulled away. “I can’t. I don’t know how. The things I did to you were tame to what I really want. I can’t stop it. I can’t control it.” He pushed me away, hands shoving deep into his pockets. Walking away, he barricaded further connection. “Who wants to hurt someone so much if they’re supposed to love them? Who wants to see them writhe in agony and completely submit? No one sane. I’m f**ked up, esclave. I can’t give you what you want.”

Esclave.

My body shuddered. Q’s face tightened with need, realizing what he said.

“Did you call any other girl esclave?” I noticed he called the girl in the lounge Sephena—a name, not a title.

Eyes glinted, shaking his head.

I stepped forward, trapping him by the fireplace. “Whatever you think of yourself, you do care. You gave me the sketchpad. You gave me what I needed after I was raped. You’re a good person, Q. A saviour to so many women. I want to make you happy.”

Q sucked in a heavy breath, watching with unreadable eyes as I reached up, cupping his throat. He stood taller as I squeezed, flaring with power at the thought he let me dominate. I said what I came to say, I needed to hear his proclamation to be satisfied.

Pressing against his larynx, I whispered, “Did it hurt you, sending me away?”

When he didn’t answer, I leaned in, tightening my fingers. He swallowed beneath my touch, Adam’s apple bobbing with masculinity.

He glared, waging an internal war. I knew he wanted to shrug me off—and he could—there was nothing I could do to stop him, but he let himself be ruled, just for a moment. Finally, something unlocked in his eyes; heart-shattering passion blazed. He nodded. “Yes.”

I could barely breathe. “Yes, you hurt?”

He rolled his shoulders, breaking my hold on him. He towered over me, gathering shadows from the room, crackling with energy. “Yes, I f**king hurt. I haven’t slept well in weeks. I can’t go in my bedroom because I get so hard. I f**king come twice a day remembering how you writhed beneath the whip. How your skin flushed and crested with red.” He stopped, breathing hard. His body beseeched mine and I struggled to stay frozen.

Dragging hands over his head, he forced himself to go on as if the confession was the hardest thing he ever had to do. “You’re everything I’ve been looking for and you scare me shitless. You want me to hurt you! You’re f**king crazy for taunting me that way.” In cobra-strike quickness, he kissed me hard. “I’m terrified I’ll end up killing you.”

We locked eyes, overcome with truth. My blood thrilled at the thought of his deep desires.

With shaky hands, I unbuttoned his shirt, pushing it aside under his blazer. Every button, he breathed harder, until his chest strained and panted. My own breath matched his.

“Stop it, Tess.”

I swallowed. “You won’t kill me. You wouldn’t go that far.” I traced inked sparrows on his skin, following ribs, and hard planes of delectable muscle. “I know you deplore what happened to the women you save. You won’t turn me into a broken shadow of myself. Your ferocity feeds me.” I ducked to nip his nipple, teeth aching to draw blood. “Whatever you give, I can take… as long as I know how you feel.”