Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
I nodded frantically. “But you don’t have to. The risk.”
“I love you, Jamie,” he growled against my ear. “I’ll do anything for you.”
“Oh, God. I love you, too.” I grabbed onto my aching cock, so close to blowing…so fucking close I could scream.
“Tell me when you’re about to—”
“Now,” I rasped, feeling my orgasm boiling up from the base of my cock. “I’m coming now.”
He squeezed his bent elbow more snugly against my throat in a tight V, the gentle but consistent pressure slowing the blood flow to my sex-addled brain. The sound of his harsh breaths at my ear became a distant sawing, more of a memory really, as cold heat sizzled through my cock, up and out and oh, God. There was a tightening, a pulsing, and a delicious warmth that moved like time-lapse clouds across my mind.
Then I was swimming up toward consciousness, watching through closed eyes as tiny bubbles floated and swirled around my head. Kage’s face wavered slowly into focus, upside-down, watching me closely from above.
“Welcome back,” he said with a smile.
I started, realizing that my last coherent memory had been of shooting all over myself. I looked down at my body, and for a second I felt shame. My dick was softening against my belly, and I was splattered with droplets of my own semen. Kage lifted my head from his thighs and slipped out from under me, crawling around to look down at me properly. He planted a soft kiss on my lips.
“I—”
When he didn’t finish his sentence, I prompted, “You what?”
“I… was just wondering how that felt.”
“Intense.” I bit my lip. “Scary.”
“I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through my hair, pushing the sweaty tendrils back from my forehead. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Not for real.”
I leaned up onto my elbows, still feeling off kilter. “It wasn’t scary like that, Kage. I trust you. I know you would never hurt me. It’s just that… I came so hard. It’s like I went somewhere else, but I was still coming.”
I shuddered, unable to tell Kage the whole truth. That I felt like we’d crossed that line between reality and what ought to remain fantasy. And it was my fault.
(KAGE)
- 4:07 a.m. -
WHEN a fighter taps out in a choke, it’s not something I want to miss. I’m waiting for it, every nerve ending on red alert, synapses waiting to give the signal to let go, let go!
But my muscles are tenacious, driven by an inborn need to conquer, to win, to survive. They lock on and won’t let go, even through the little tap-tap-tap on my arm. And then even through the frantic slapping as he struggles to break free of my deadly grip, realizing too late the risk he’s taken, that this is not a child’s game. It’s fucking Russian Roulette, and he’s lost. My embrace is going to drag him all the way down into death, and there’s not a fucking thing he can do about it.
He lets loose in a flurry, slapping and tearing at my head, his compressed windpipe rasping out a last ditch “Kage, let me go!”
Chapter 10
(JAMIE)
IN my dream, Kage was behind me. He cradled my body within his, wrapping me up in the strangest, most wonderful sense of security I’d ever known. He was my lover and my keeper, my other half. We existed in our own little cocoon, hidden away from the rest of the world, floating untouched above the City of Sin.
But his hold on me, the one that kept me safe, tightened. His breathing became erratic against my ear, and his touch felt… different. The moment I woke up is the moment the dream turned into a nightmare.
Kage had wrapped himself around me like a hungry constrictor. I recognized the posture all too well.
My first reaction was panic, but then I thought maybe he was horsing around with me. I waited for a few seconds, hoping to feel his fevered nighttime kisses, or his erection sliding against my ass, but neither of those things happened. Instead, his strong arm went around my throat. I felt it like one of those automatic seat belts that cinched you up without permission.
My hands weren’t quick enough or strong enough to stop him from executing the move. I cried out for him. “Let go, let go!” But he didn’t let go. He squeezed harder. Not hard enough to damage my windpipe, but firmly enough to compromise the blood flow to my brain.
Then the full realization hit me of what was going on. Kage was killing me.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Right there in the middle of facing death, when my body should have been fleeing or fighting, my heart took the time to break.
Then my brain kicked into gear, and I started fighting for my life.