Did she not realize what she was saying? I’d put her through hell, and my dick wasn’t done with her yet, not even close. “I wanted to take you.” My gaze veered to her neck when she swallowed hard. I settled a hand around her throat, surprised when she didn’t fight me. The compulsion to squeeze the breath from her beckoned. “I have a demon inside me. That’s what happens when a man has dark tendencies and no outlet for them. I used to fight them out of me in the cage.”

“Rafe.” My name fell from her lips with a breathy sigh. I pressed a thumb against her collarbone where her pulse fluttered as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

I didn’t want to think it, let alone say it, but fuck, somewhere inside me a conscience still pulsed. I had to set her free. Except I had no end game. I’d fantasized about taking her for years, had planned out every last detail, but I hadn’t foreseen the need to let her go. I didn’t think she’d run to the cops, as her guilt came off her in palpable waves, but where would letting her off this island leave me, besides my life in utter disarray? I cursed my fucking conscience and its bad timing. “This has to end, Alex.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m letting you go.” The words hung between us, and now that they were out there, I wanted to snatch them back. There were so many reasons not to keep her here, namely that she wasn’t as guilty as I initially thought in sending me to prison. She’d played a part, but how much choice had she really had? Fifteen was young, much too young to deal with rape, abortions, and blackmail.

“Why?” she whispered, as if the thought of getting her freedom back was unbearable.

I moved my hand to the back of her neck and drew her close, aching to take her mouth. “Because I still want to hurt you,” I said, my attention drifting to her parted lips, “still want you in ways that isn’t right. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll beg to be mine, and that’s a bad idea.”

“I want to be yours,” she said without hesitation, as if she wanted to be my everything, as if the idea of my being done with her tortured her. What we shared was pure obsession, nothing more and nothing less, and it was the sweetest madness in hell.

I shook my head, trying to convince myself as much as her. “I can’t keep doing this to you. I battled with myself enough before I knew Zach’s part in this, but now…”

She averted her gaze, but not before new tears formed. Watching her emotionally withdraw pissed me off.

“What is it? What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”