And now I wait close to Greer’s door for the second man to come nearer…nearer still…until I can hear his breath from the corner I hide behind, and I give him the same treatment I gave the first. I’m tempted to plunge right into Greer’s room after I finish with him, but I force myself to be more circumspect. I search the other floors, the other rooms, confirming that there is no other hired muscle lurking around.
“House is clear,” I tell Gareth and Wu through the small mic connected to my earpiece. “Both the guards are taken care of. I’m going in for Mrs. Colchester now.”
“Understood,” Wu says. “Gareth and I are working our way back down to the gate at the entrance to the property to check for guards there, disabling what security systems we can. We’ll signal you if there’s any change or if Melwas returns—otherwise we’ll wait for you at our rendezvous point just outside the fence.”
I click off the mic and go back to the second floor, to the room that holds Greer. And as I slide the deadbolt away from its slot and open the door, I notice my hands are shaking. Shaking when they were so steady earlier, steady with the gun, steady as I fought those men.
I suppose it’s adrenaline or relief. I suppose it’s love.
The door opens, sending a long rectangle of light across the dark bedroom. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, to take in the large room and the canopy bed and the low, slender shape on top of it. And just as I register silk and pale hair, Greer moves into my gaze, rolling from the darkness into the light.
She winces at the brightness of it, but she doesn’t speak, and I remember she’s gagged. Gagged and bound, the silver duct tape striking a discordant note against all that red silk.
Discordant…but pleasing.
What happens next happens in the space of a mere second or two, the pump of a heart, the blink of an eye: I step forward, ready to speak, ready to cut away her bonds, ready to cradle her—ready to wipe as much of this nightmare away from her as I can—but as I do, my shadow falls across her body.
And so there is Greer, her eyes finally fluttering open to see me, her first expression not of welcome or relief but of panic, and she moves, like she’s trying to put distance between us, nearly thrashing in desperation. A wrenching sound comes from her—she’s crying, and her cries are muffled by the gag. I realize that she can’t see my face yet, that I’m merely a male silhouette coming to her in the dark.
And so there is Greer, eyes silver like the tape on her wrists, wide-eyed and afraid, red silk draping and clinging to every perfect curve. There is Greer, her chest heaving with dread, her throat exposed, her entire body bound and vulnerable to the will of any man who passes by.
There is Greer, with my shadow written across her skin like a stamp of ownership.
And what I feel is like a shock, like touching a battery to your tongue. A metallic taste floods my mouth as a thousand awful, cruelly unspeakable things flood my mind. My heart jolts into a rapid tattoo, my fingers itch, heat pulses at the base of my spine, and fuck, I feel it.
This…urge. To take. To hurt. To keep her bound and helpless.
To feel her body open to my control, my squeezing and my penetrating and my violating. And just the idea of it, the possibilities contained in that one image of my shadow on her body…
I’m hard. I’m restless with it. My cock aches with it, for it.
What is happening to me? This isn’t the real me. I’ve long accepted that I’m a man who’s not truly dominant or submissive…even though I’m a man in love with both a dominant and a submissive. But I’ve also let Ash love me and take from me as his fullest, most powerful self, and those are the truest, best moments I have ever known. I’ve also held my body over Greer’s as she whispered to me that she was a virgin, and savored each savage moment that I fucked her, savored the blood and her whimpers of pain and the writhing orgasms I coaxed from her body over and over again.
Maybe it is me. Maybe the same way I can submit to Ash, only after defeat and struggle…maybe I can only feel dominant in the same situations.
All of these thoughts happen in the space of time it takes for Greer to recognize me. Her eyes widen, and then her tears change, transforming from molten terror into a molten relief. That breaks the spell a little, gives me the strength to go her and do nothing other than press my hand to the side of her face as I loosen the cloth gag and pull it down from her mouth. I think of Ash murmuring vy v bezpetsi—you are safe—to the people he saved during the war, but I can’t bring myself to say that to Greer. How can I when I’m still burning with lust at the sight of her not-safe?
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
“No,” she sobs, sucking in wet breaths through dry lips. “I thought you were—he was coming back and I thought—”
Her tears reach for something deep inside me, tugging on my need to soothe her, protect her, destroy what would hurt her.
They also tug on something darker.
“Greer, it’s okay, you don’t have to cry,” I entreat. “Please, sweetheart.”
“I do have to cry,” she says, and her voice is fierce and loud and thin all at once. “I do, I do, I do. He touched me, Embry, and he wanted to…he was going to—” Her words dissolve into more tears. I try to calm her, reassure her.
“Melwas is off the grounds,” I say, moving my attention to her wrists. They’ve wrapped the tape too tightly and the tips of her fingers are a dark red. They’re cool to the touch against my palm. “And I’ve taken care of the guards here. We have people waiting for us outside the security perimeter, so all we have to do is get out of the house. You’re safe now. We’re almost back home.”