“Do you want to die? Is that what you’re trying to achieve here?” Fox growled. His hand dropped to cup between his legs. “You want this so damn much you’d be willing to die for it?”

“No, I’m not willing to die for you. I thought I proved that before.” My eyes shifted to where I’d stabbed him. “I’ll never forgive you for hurting me. I’ll never forget the madness living inside you. I will gladly kill you if you ever try to end me, but I need human connection, Fox. And you’re not giving it to me. You need to get over your issues. Forget your past, so you can touch me. Make love to me.”

It was too infuriating spending so much time with someone who I desperately wanted to help. Any minor progress we made was swallowed back into his deep-seated problems. For someone like me who existed to save others it was persecution, and I refused to be a martyr anymore.

Fox snorted. “Make love. I don’t even know the meaning of it. How can I do something I’ll never understand?”

I’ll make you understand.

My eyes flew open. Somehow my need to help him became tangled with the desire to make him fall for me. To keep him, so I could always be there to bring him back from the dark.

It didn’t matter that I’d be shackling myself with more problems than support—or that I never wanted him near Clara. It was a stupid fantasy.

It didn’t stop my skin burning for his mouth or my pussy growing wet for his cock. I wanted. I wanted. I wanted.

Yet he never came near me.

Angry tears glossed my eyes. “If you can’t give me what I need, then this deal is done. I told you I agreed to your terms not just for the money, but because I wanted you. Well, try wanting someone who can never give anything in return.”

My fingers dropped from pebbled nipples to my button and zipper. Undoing my shorts, I pushed them down in angry jerks—nothing sensual or alluring. I was fucking angry, and I needed to get rid of the insane need in my blood.

Fox made a tortured noise in the back of his throat. “Stop it. I’m not safe. Put your clothes back on and give me time to get my shit together.”

I should’ve heeded his warning. I knew how dangerous he was. But it didn’t stop me. I snapped, “I want to see you naked. I want to run my hands all over you. I want to lick your chest and trail kisses down your stomach. I want—”

Fox froze. His entire body locked down. “If you think you can touch me like you did when you stitched my leg, forget it. I was in pain—that same pain helped distract me while you stupidly touched and provoked me.”

“Provoked? You call sucking you until you exploded down my throat, provoked?” My body flushed with heat. “You wanted me to touch you. You craved my tongue and the warmth I could offer your frozen soul. You let me own you in that moment, Fox.”

“I was fucking weak and stupid.” Dashing a hand over his face, he growled, “You were lucky I had enough control to obey. But I’m done obeying anyone. I want to obey myself. I don’t want you to tell me what to do.” He punched himself in the chest. “No more, you hear me! No more fucking orders. I’m out.”

His tone had changed from pissed to belligerent like a child speaking to an authority figure. He didn’t talk about our fight; he spoke of yet another issue inside him. Something I would never understand.

“I’m not asking for your compliance. You don’t have to obey me. You were strong enough to seek pleasure. You were the one who controlled me in the greenhouse. Your fingers, your touch, you consumed me. You can do it again.”

A smidgen of fight left him and his shoulders sank. “I—” He looked away before gritting his teeth. “I don’t trust myself to try again. No matter how much I want to.” His eyes flew up, locking on my naked breasts. “Fuck, how I want to.”

My heart fluttered with delicate wings. He wanted me. He wanted what I did.

He wanted me all the while keeping his distance to protect me. My heart thudded harder, forcing more lustful blood through my system.

Fox stood glowering, chest pumping, the front of his trousers tenting with arousal. “Put your clothes back on.”

I shook my head. “I want to fuck you, that’s why I’m taking my clothes off. You should try it. It makes the whole experience that much more enjoyable.”

Picking up the knife on the bedspread, I deliberately cut the lace on my hips, letting my knickers flutter to the floor. Standing naked before him, I murmured, “Let me undress you. Let me touch and kiss you. Let me see what you’re hiding beneath all that black.”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen. Your bruises are only just fading. What if I kill you next time? You’ve forgiven me for so much. Don’t ask me to hurt you more.”

Annoyance chased my need and I kneeled on the bed, crawling toward him. “I haven’t forgiven you. I’ll never get over you strangling me half to death. But I don’t care because you owe me. You owe me another orgasm. You owe me to let me try and help you.”

I reached the side of his bed, and he backed away. I climbed to my feet, advancing.

Keeping the same amount of distance between us, Fox moved backward, heading toward the seating area by the windows.

While we danced across the room, I gave myself over to my insanely foolish plan. My feet moved toward him as I began my idiotic seduction. “Working beside you makes my heart pound…” I swirled my fingertip on the swell of my breast, directly above my heart. “Here.”

Another step toward him. “Talking to you makes my breath come faster, dragging your smoky scent into my lungs…” I pressed my fist against my solar plexus. “Here.”

Fox waged a battle, his face flickering with so many thoughts. Every step that took me closer to him, I feared he’d snap and kill me, but I never stopped.

“Staring at your lips makes me fantasise about you kissing me.” I trailed my finger across my parted mouth. “Here.” Every part of me sparked and fizzled and pinpricked with need.

Fox shook his head, eyes shadowing with urges I didn’t comprehend.

Dropping my fingers, I tugged on the bar bell through my right nipple. “I want your mouth here.” My hand drifted lower, trickling over the chain, darting over my caesarean scar from Clara, and boldly going between my legs. “I want your tongue here.” I gasped as my finger swirled my clit.

The back of Fox’s knees connected against a chair; he slammed into it. His hand clutched at his erection, almost unconsciously, his gaze raking over me greedily.

My vision darkened as bubbles of lust sprang into a wrecking ball of desire. “I want to feel you deep inside me. I want to hear you groan and pant and moan as you plunge deeper and deeper.”

He swallowed hard, his throat contracted with fear. “I’m—you’re, fuck me, Hazel.” His snowy eyes flinted to dark grey, erupting a flurry of need in my stomach. “I want you so fucking much. Do you know how hard it’s been keeping my distance and then you go and practically beg me to plunge inside you? I have self-control but I’m not a saint.”

Wetness trickled at his confession; my heart burst with hope. “Please, Fox. I am begging. I need you to make me come again.”

His jaw locked as his hands fumbled at his fly. In a matter of seconds, he undid the material and shoved them around his thighs. His glistening, rock-hard erection sprang free, only to be captured by a brutal unforgiving hand.

He pumped himself demonically, eyes wild. “Touch yourself. Make yourself come.”

My fingers turned harsher on my skin, adopting the same violence Fox used on himself. “I’ll do anything you want if it means you’ll get naked and make love to me.”

He groaned, hand slowing to a tantalizing stroke on his hard length. “I can’t.”

Biting my lip, I slid two fingers between my legs. My eyes swam with passion; I breathed, “You have to get naked at some point. That’s what sex is, Fox. The joining of two bodies. The joy of exploring each other, touching, stroking, licking, tasting—”