I didn’t want to say my safe word. I wanted him to fuck me.

There. I admitted it to myself.

“I won’t say it,” I said.

“Fine,” he said. “Have it your way.”

How dare she say that I had broken her heart again? How dare she finally, finally, admit that I affected her, that she cared about me, and then act like it was nothing?

No. It was not nothing.

It was a not-nothing that tore my heart out of my chest and then brought it back to life, it was something that gave me anguished pain and even more anguished hope all at once. If I’d broken her heart again, that meant that she still loved me, which meant that there was a chance I could salvage all this. A chance I could fix everything.

Quickly, without giving her a chance to realize what was happening, I hooked an arm around her waist and picked her up as I stood, her hips on my shoulder and her head hanging down my back and her adorable feet—tiny and encased in expensive white leather—kicking madly in front. I would be lying if I said that this didn’t make my already insistent erection even more insistent.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Put me down!”

“You know what to say, love,” I told her as I carried her toward the maze exit. “You know how to get me to stop.”

She fell silent. Predictably.

I grinned, glad she couldn’t see it, since it would make her even angrier, but I couldn’t help myself. She was so fucking competitive—to the point that she would endure the unendurable from me simply so that I wouldn’t win.

Frankly, I didn’t want to win. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to shower her face with kisses and apologies and promises, and I wanted her to accept my proposal and let me be her husband. I would be perfectly happy if I never heard the word Clare again, especially not in that strangled, dead voice she’d used at Mercy’s house.

So why did I feel compelled to push her? Why did I need to spank her, to force her, to debase her? I’d never needed to do that to a woman. That was Julian’s style, not mine; I was the easygoing one, the happy one. But when I saw Molly, when I was with her, something else took over. This disturbing need to have her cries filling the air, her ass glowing pink, her wrists gathered in my hand. Was it because I knew that Molly wouldn’t let just any man top her? And that turned dominating her into some kind of prize?

Or was it because, somehow, I knew that she needed it? More than me, even?

We exited the maze, and I carried her to a long stretch of lawn, laying her on the springy grass and kneeling between her legs. Birds trilled around us, butterflies flapped, and in the distance, a fountain trickled a sleepy August trickle. It was the kind of day made for fucking in the grass.

Her head twisted up. “We’re too close to the house, someone will see—”

My hand clapped over her mouth, my skin slightly darker and rougher than hers, my fingers pressing into the soft skin of her cheek.

Oh, I liked the way that looked. I liked it very much.

“You let me worry about that. Or say your safe word. But if you’re not going to say your safe word, then you’d best say nothing at all.”

I let my hand fall from her mouth as I rucked up her skirt.

“And why is that?” she asked, her eyes glowing a furious blue. “I’ll talk when I damn well please, and just because I haven’t said my safe word doesn’t mean I won’t say anything else…” Her voice trailed off as the skirts reached her waist, baring her wet, swollen pussy to me.

I took a finger and rubbed her clit—once, twice, three times. Her eyes fluttered closed.

I pulled my finger away and she groaned. “I think you’ll play by my rules,” I said, “if you want to come.”

“That’s not fair,” she said, eyes still closed.

Smack.

This time I slapped the inside of her thigh, the fiery red imprints of my fingers appearing almost instantly on her milky white skin. She drew in a sharp breath through her teeth but didn’t cry out, letting her legs fall open as I returned my attention to her clit.

“I decide what’s fair right now, do you hear me?” I slapped her other thigh, and then—just once and only a little hard—I slapped her pussy, my dick surging as I did it.

God, when did I turn so diabolical?

Her back arched and she did cry out this time, and I wished I could bottle that cry and then uncork it on lonely nights. I slapped her pussy again and then immediately sealed my mouth over hers, swallowing the breath she gasped out, swallowing the soft shriek she gave.

She moaned underneath me, her legs wrapping around my waist and pulling me down so that my hips settled between her legs. Her heels dug into my back and her hands were everywhere, and now she was trying to flip us over, so that I would be on the bottom and she on top, a position we’d fucked in so many times that I’d lost count. But I wasn’t having that today, and so I reached up and found her throat with one hand, wrapping my fingers around her neck. I gave a light, experimental squeeze.

She stilled, her lips parted slightly.

I reached down with my other hand and found her cunt, slick and ready for me. “You get so wet when I wrap my fingers around your throat,” I whispered as I slowly unbuttoned my trousers. “You want me to fuck you like this, doll? You want to come with my hand on your neck?”

She stared right into my eyes. And nodded.

I took in a breath, the full force of the moment hitting me all at once—my hand strong and rough around her throat, her bared legs and bared pussy, her asking for me to screw her while I nearly choked her…

Fuck me. If I had thought that having Molly O’Flaherty riding me was the most alluring thing I’d ever seen, I now knew better. This was the most alluring, the most tempting, to the point where I was worried about coming before I even finished pulling myself out of my pants.

Finally, my trousers were undone, and I fisted my erection, giving it a few mindless pumps while I stared down into Molly’s face. She had features like a china doll, delicate and pale and feminine. And the dusting of freckles across her nose and the pink blush in her cheeks made her look like the girl I’d met ten years ago in Europe, brash and bossy and carefree.

She wasn’t carefree now—I could see the worry lines in her forehead, the exhaustion in her eyes. I vowed to myself that I would make her forget, just for a few moments, everything except us, everything except joy and pleasure and what it felt like to be loved.

“Silas,” she murmured, squirming underneath me. “Please.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely, Mary Margaret…”

I brushed the flared tip of my cock against her, loving the way she shivered as I did, loving how hot her flesh was, how wet. I leaned over to get a better angle, shifting some of my weight onto the hand around her throat. The skin there was thin and smooth, and underneath, I could feel the tiny, butterfly-like beats of her pulse. Her life, her entire life, was under my hand. For the first time, I really understood how much stronger I was than her, how much bigger. Even if she tried to fight me off, even if she wanted me to stop, I could hold her down and do whatever I liked, use her however I wanted.

Perversely, that realization made me even more intent on loving her, on protecting her. The rest of the world saw Molly as strong and capable, but I knew that deep down, she needed to be taken care of and cherished and worshipped and petted—not left alone to suffer and endure. She needed someone she could let down her guard with, someone who could help her find peace and calm in the middle of her chaotic world.

I wanted to be that someone, even if for only for a few moments.