Chapter 6: No Mercy

Evelyn's Point of View

My genuine feelings for Julian were like a slap across Sebastian’s face. Combined with his malicious suspicions, they shattered what little remaining reason he had.

He pressed me against the wall, his tall, powerful frame pinning me in place.

My desperate struggles looked like a joke in front of him.

Sebastian seized both of my wrists and shoved them upward, subduing me with effortless strength. Then his thin lips, burning with fury, crashed down onto mine in a punishing, forceful kiss.

“No…” The syllable I had just cried out was sealed by his overbearing mouth.

His kiss was domineering and absolute, giving me no chance to breathe, as if he meant to devour me whole.

My eyes flew wide in terror. I shoved hard at his chest and twisted my head desperately to the side, trying to escape. I did not want to make the same mistake again.

His kiss was far too aggressive and overbearing. The ruthless plunder left me nowhere to retreat; I could only endure it passively.

“Mmm…”

My struggles grew weaker and weaker. Only when my lungs burned from lack of air and I was nearly asphyxiated did Sebastian finally release me.

Briefly free, I gasped for breath in great gulps, my expression slightly dazed. “Don’t kiss me anymore…”

On the wide leather sofa, I looked up at him with hazy eyes, still seemingly lost in the deep kiss that had just ended.

Sebastian’s breathing tightened. A dark flame kindled in the depths of his black eyes. “I shouldn’t have left you with enough strength to get out of bed.”

Under his stare, my body shrank. My mind snapped back into focus.

Surely he wasn’t thinking of doing it on the sofa…

The next second I flipped over, ready to flee, Sebastian’s large hand shot out and easily caught my slender ankle, dragging me back.

I screamed and kicked at his hand, but he simply lifted my leg higher. Everything beneath my skirt was fully exposed to his gaze.

“Sebastian, you…” I was furious and pale with rage.

If earlier it had only been a punishing scare tactic, now pure desire to thoroughly possess me remained. He pressed down on me and, with lightning speed, attacked my lips again.

The rough kiss nearly broke the skin of my lips.

The more I struggled, the fiercer his kiss became, and the more ruthlessly the hand clamped around my waist tightened.

It was less a kiss than Sebastian venting his rage.

“You asked for this,” he said roughly, his movements crude. He wanted only to possess me in the most painful way possible, so I would remember clearly who my man truly was.

“Don’t… please…” My refusals sounded weak and powerless against his strength.

The man’s one-sided, forceful taking had only just begun.

Only after I couldn't stand up once more from the intensity did Sebastian, finally satisfied, narrow his eyes and carry me away to clean up. My face was almost translucent white. The dense marks of his kisses spoke of how little mercy he had shown.

When I woke again, it was night.

Every muscle ached, as if a truck had rolled over me and backed up to try again. I couldn't have lifted a finger if I'd wanted to. Somewhere at the edge of sleep I remembered a low voice murmuring into my hair, ‘mine, you're mine,’ and I wasn't sure whether I'd dreamed it.

Then I saw the man lying beside me, and every detail came flooding back.

What color I had left drained from my face. My lips went cold. I started to tremble.

The moment I moved, his arm shifted, and I went rigid. His eyes stayed closed and his breathing stayed slow and even, but something about his stillness felt too deliberate.

‘Maybe he's really asleep. Maybe I can slip away.’

Inch by inch, I eased out from under the weight of his arm. I had nearly made it when he rolled over, apparently in his sleep, and folded me right back against his chest.

I almost cried. All that effort, undone by one lazy turn.

I tried again. I lifted his arm like it was made of glass and shuffled my hips sideways, as clumsy as a rabbit in a trap. When I glanced up, I met a pair of dark eyes, wide awake and full of amusement.

I froze.

‘How long has he been awake? Did he know I was trying to sneak off? Is he planning how to punish me?’

My brain short-circuited, and I blurted the first thing that came to mind. "I need the bathroom. Do you?"

I wanted to bite off my own tongue.

The corner of his mouth curved. He scooped me up in his arms as if I weighed nothing. "I do. Let's go together."

I went completely blank.

‘Together? For that? How would that even work?’

No, no, this was not the time to wonder. I bit my lip and smiled so sweetly it hurt. "That's okay, really. I'm not used to having someone there."

"Then I'll get used to it for both of us." He looked down at me, and the smile he wore was strangely, unfairly warm.

The room was dim, and in the thin light his face seemed to give off a faint glow, every feature sharp and beautiful. I stared before I could stop myself.

Whatever he had done, and I hadn't forgotten any of it, I had to admit that he was the most breathtakingly handsome man I had ever seen.

"Like what you see?" His smile widened. His eyes, dark as polished stone, caught the light like stars.

"Huh?" I snapped out of it, caught red-handed, and my face went hot all the way down my neck.

"Looking is only the start." His tone turned shamelessly teasing. "Come on. Inspect the goods. See if you're satisfied."

He shifted me to one arm, took my hand with the other, and pressed it flat against his chest.

Under the thin fabric of his sleep shirt I could feel the hard line of muscle and the steady thump of his heartbeat. He started to guide my hand lower, over the ridges of his stomach.

My face burned. I tried to pull my hand away, and it wouldn't budge. "Don't do that," I whispered.

"Don't do what?" He sounded delighted. I had the feeling he lived for the sight of me flustered.

I couldn't answer. I could hardly admit I'd been picturing his shoulders and his waist and everything I'd glimpsed in the dark.

"I can't hold it any longer," I said weakly. "Please get out."