“You’re mine, Lakynnn. You always have been.” He stares at me like I’m sacred. Like I’m already his, even if I haven’t said the words.

And part of me wants to fall into him, tell him that I feel the exact same way. But I’m still wrecked, still shaking from everything I went through when he wasn’t here.

I take a step back.

“No,” I say, hands shaking.

But he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t let me go.

“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t touch me right now.”

He cups my face with blood-streaked fingers.

“I can’t help it,” he rasps. “You ran. You shouldn’t have run. I’ve been trying to be a gentleman.”

I let out a shaky laugh because there’s something in his eyes that tells me he’s never going to let me out of his sight again. “This is you being a gentleman?” I gesture over to where Matthew lay, bludgeoned to death with Riven’s bare hands.

Riven’s voice dips, and he sounds absolutely dangerous.

“You have no idea the thrill I get from chasing you.”

My breath stutters.

“You’re lucky Matthew was here,” he growls, pressing his forehead to mine. “Because if I’d caught you alone? I’d be buried so deep inside you we’d never talk things out.”

I blink up at him, stunned.

He must read my confusion because he mutters, his voice like gravel, "Some things are just... embedded in our DNA. And chasing you, pinning you down and fucking you until you understand just how much you belong to me, that's coursing through my veins."

I swallow hard, and he pulls my hips to his, grinding against me. Thick, hard heat is all I feel pressed against me. I can feel the blush creeping up my neck at the heavy feel of him.

“I need it. I crave it. I have to have it. But it has to be the right time,” he says as his lips brush my ear. "I need you to want it just as much as I do, baby."

“Riven, I …” I start, but he shakes his head like he needs me to just listen.

“You’re mine,” he tells me. “No one else’s. No one touches you. No one even looks at you. I don’t know how to exist without you, Lakynn. I’ll make you see it. Feel it. You’ll never doubt it again. I won’t ever allow it.”

My hand moves before I think. I reach up, almost instinctively, brushing away the blood on his face with the edge of my thumb. My skin drags across his cheekbone, gentle, careful, and then I freeze.