Before she sent me away, I’d done my damnedest to do the honorable thing by keeping my distance, though there’d been times I’d slipped up. Like the time she baited me into a game of pool by implying she was unbeatable. We’d played a fiercely competitive game, all the while bantering about horror movies and alternative rock music. She loved the horror and loathed the rock. Not surprising, since she adored the piano.

I’d smoked her the first game. During the second, she conceded and asked for my help in positioning her for the end shot. That was the first time I acknowledged the familiar tingle rushing through me as I bent over her, my hand sliding along hers and guiding her to set up the shot that would win her the game.

I’d also realized, too late, how she’d used the game as a ploy to get close to me. We’d both jumped a foot apart when Zach’s boots thumped down the stairs, and our faces must have given us away because he was furious. The protective thumb he held over her wasn’t new. Guys couldn’t go near her without him losing it, but he should have known better when it came to me. Beyond helping her with a game of pool, I would have never crossed that line. Twenty-one and fifteen didn’t mix.

I didn’t touch her again, until the day, a few weeks later, when she had a total meltdown after her mom’s funeral. I’d needed her in my arms, needed to absorb some of her pain.

Leaning my head against the cellar door, I let my breath even out as a tremor seized my body, and the memory of our history together vanished. I fought the urge to go back down there and finish what I’d started. My dick throbbed with the need, though I held back. I was still too fucking raw, and I didn’t want to make the kind of mistake that proved fatal. With the visual I had going through my mind—hands wrapped around her delicate throat as I emptied eight years of pent-up rage and desire into her—I knew I couldn’t rush this. Control was imperative.

But shit, I wanted to fuck her.

I waited, listening for a while, but she didn’t make a sound, and I had to give her credit. I’d left her in total darkness, naked, and no doubt, freezing. These next few days were going to be hell compared to her pampered princess life.

I’d scared the utter crap out of her, and some sick part of me rejoiced in reducing her to nothing. She didn’t even have a bucket to piss in. Watching her cower had been the biggest rush of my life, and that was saying a lot, considering I used to live for pummeling bodies inside the cage.

Maybe it was because I’d fixated on her in prison. At first, nothing but hatred consumed me, but then as my incarceration started playing with my mind, I’d let my imagination run wild. I’d fucked her every way possible, and in each scenario, she’d sobbed and pleaded for me to stop. I’d envisioned sexually torturing her in ways no sane, normal man should be able put into words.