Embraced (The Eternal Balance #2)(10)


What the f*ck was I doing?

I jumped up and backed myself into the opposite corner of the room, breath coming in shallow pulls. My stomach tightened.

Sam sat up and started toward me. “What are you—”

“Stop,” I roared. She froze, and I squeezed my eyes closed for a second. Everything was spinning. The images hadn’t stopped. In one after another, I watched myself take what I wanted from her, satisfying the demon’s sickest whims. In my mind she screamed and cried and begged me to stop. Then in an instant, she was cooing and pleading for more. Back and forth. Pleasure and pain. “The pictures… They’re dark and vicious. Possessive. I wanted to hurt you, Sammy. To taste your fear.”

“Fear? Jax, I could never be af—”

I slammed my fists backward into the wall behind me. The plaster crumbled beneath the blow, showering the carpet with dust and debris. “Yes!” The word ripped from my throat, bouncing like a stray bullet off the walls of her small room. I took a step forward, goaded by the look of surprise on her face. My lips spread with a grin. “I could make you afraid. I could do things that would terrify you.”

Her skin paled. This time, instead of coming closer, she had the sense to back away. Two steps to the right, then around the bottom of the bed until she was on the other side. “This isn’t you talking, Jax. It’s Azi.”

“Maybe it is,” I admitted, even though I couldn’t be sure anymore. The line between the demon and I grew hazier each day. I’d never admit it, but I worried one day it would disappear all together, leaving us a single creature. “But some small part is me. I liked what I saw, Sammy. I needed it.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, resolute.

“Listen to me!” I shouted. This was serious. I wanted Sam. In every way, I wanted her. But she was more to me than the desire she sparked. She was home. My best friend. To have so little control over my impulses meant Azi was stronger than I’d anticipated. Even now there was very little keeping me from closing the distance between her and…

Deep breath. “I’m having a hard time controlling myself around you. I saw…”

What had I seen? The fire I’d felt for the thing in the vision still burned in my veins, tangled with my desire for Sam. It left me raw and exposed.

“I don’t care what you saw,” she said softly. One foot in front of the other, she cautiously made her way around the bed to where I stood and took my hands. They looked huge in hers—calloused, rough things brushing against perfect creamy satin. “You never give yourself enough credit, Jax. You are the strongest man I know.”

Strong? She was f*cking insane. My heart thundered, the erratic rhythm making it impossible to draw anything more than quick, shallow breaths that did little to satisfy my need for air. The walls seemed to be closing in. The room to be growing smaller. Need. There was something I needed. Something that would make this suffocating feeling go away.

Sam shook her head. “Jax…”

I grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her. Control. The desire to dominate. She needed to know that she was mine. “You belong to me,” I whispered fiercely, working my way down her neck. I wasn’t gentle. Taking small sections of skin between my teeth, I nipped and twisted. Not hard enough to be painful, but with enough force to make her gasp. To drive my point home. “You belong to me. Mine,” I said, pulling away.

Any reservations she might have had after my sickening confession seemed to melt into nothingness. She pushed forward. I felt her eagerness. To taste me again. To feel me pressed against her. Inside her. But I held her back. At arm’s length, my hands still knotted in her hair, I kept her secure.

“You understand me, right?” My fingers twitched, tightening, and a flash of that same dark female figure almost brought me to my knees.

Sam nodded, slowly, then jerked forward. I let go of her hair, surprised, as she grabbed either side of my neck, her nails digging into the skin. Stopping a fraction of an inch from my lips, she said, her voice low and hypnotic, “Understand that it works both ways.”

Fuck…

She bit at my bottom lip, then wriggled her hands up beneath my shirt, dragging her nails hard across the skin. The pain drove Azi wild. It just about got me off, too. My hands fell to my zipper.

My entire body ached to be inside her, and the image of that female, still too fresh in my mind, needed to be scrubbed away. This would be the thing to do it—replacing that scene with one of my making. One of my choosing. I leaned in again, determined to do this despite Heckle’s warnings, but…

Something crashed outside the room.





Chapter Four


Sam


Jax was at the door in an instant. “Stay here,” he barked over his shoulder. I opened my mouth to argue, but he slipped from the room, dismissing me.

Oh, hell no.

I yanked open the door and followed.

A few steps ahead of me, he rounded the corner and rushed into the hallway between the living room and kitchen, where it sounded like the noise had come from. When I caught up to him he was in the doorway. The glass above the door on the other side of the kitchen was shattered—a million tiny pieces lay on the floor. “What happened?”

Jax whirled around, eyes narrow. “I told you to—”

Something flew at us from the right. We were knocked apart like bowling pins, but somehow I managed to stay upright. Not Jax, though. He went down hard with a grunt, taking the brunt of the blow and toppling beneath a large mass—a man. The intruder turned my way, eyes the color of midnight ink. Not a man. A demon.

Jus Accardo's Books