The icy water bites into my body as I enter the river. I hold the syringe aloft as I come up on her, my free hand snagging the soaked hem of her shirt.

Blakely groans, her voice cracking, breath fogging the air around us, as she lodges a strike to my face. Her nails claw my cheek, and I quickly maneuver out of her reach before wrapping an arm around her waist.

I pull her back to my chest and secure her arms, syringe gripped tightly in my fist, as I cradle her body against mine. The frigid water rushes around us—and I should be shivering the way Blakely is shivering in my arms, but I’m on fire.

The freezing water prickles my skin like a million needle punctures, but soon the searing burn of her flesh touches mine. I admit, it gives me a thrill that she chose to fight—an excuse to finally hold her the way I’ve only dared to fantasize.

Suppressing my urges, I tow Blakely to the river’s edge. She’s strong, I know she is, but whatever fight she had has been drained by the river. I lay her along the flat earth to catch my breath, and she rebounds with a second wind, struggling against my hold.

“We’re done,” I say, as I clasp her wrists in one hand and use my forearm to pin her arms to the ground.

Her eyes burn with malice. Her breaths come hard, her chest rising with each strained inhale.

I bring the syringe to her neck in warning, the tip of the needle pressed to the pulse in her vein. Our eyes stay locked as the threat hangs between us.

She takes a ragged breath. “Do it,” she dares. “This is how you want me…”

The challenge in her fiery gaze ignites my soul—and it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. There’s no passion behind that heated gaze, yet she imitates it so perfectly, testing my resolve.

It’s a flaw in the design.

“A creature so unfeeling shouldn’t be allowed to imitate sentiment,” I say, a light whisper across her lips. “You’re like the viceroy mimicking the monarch, beautiful and dangerous.”

Her arms go lax against my hold, her gaze flicks over my features searchingly. “You’re insane.”

Quite possibly, and it would be all her doing. “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity,” I recite. “One of my favorite Poe quotes, yet I don’t think I fully understood the meaning until now.”

I’m hard and needy where I bear down between her thighs, and I know she can feel my arousal. She can see it in my eyes—how badly I want to taste her, to know what those dangerous lips feel like against mine.

I lower the syringe and let it fall to the earth. Then I reach down between us and unfasten my belt buckle. Blakely’s eyes widen in alarm as I pull the leather belt from the loops.