Torture me more.

“Because I want you! I want you so much it hurts! I need all of you, and I can’t deny it anymore.”

Part of me reveled in her confession, but part of me feared it, knowing full well the consequences.

I brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and cupped her face. “I can’t give you what you want, beautiful. I’ll only hurt you.”

She shook her head, her fingers flexing against my skin. “It’s okay. If it’s you, I don’t mind.”

Fuck!

“Stop,” I begged as I held my hands up. “Let’s just go back to bed.”

She paused, then nodded. “Okay…okay.”

I helped her stand, and we climbed back into bed.

A woman was in my arms. A woman who had feelings for me. It wasn’t a good situation, but I didn’t know how much longer I could resist her.

CHAPTER 15

The push and pull was maddening. Not just with Lila, but within myself. I wanted more of her. I wanted more with her, but that was an impossibility. Logically, we could never be anything more than coworkers. The problem was that logic and the will of my cock were two entirely different forces.

Opposite ends playing tug of war while Lila sat next to me, completely oblivious of the battle she created in me. The blame for my mania rested solely on her.

Jesus. Every fucking day was a struggle beyond any struggle I’d ever experienced. Instead of day by day getting better, I fell deeper and deeper into a storm, churning and violent, and I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.

Lila wasn’t a victim of the storm—she was the storm.

And I hated her for it. I hated the emotions, the way my dick got so fucking hard that I couldn’t keep control over my actions.

She would be my demise.

Guilt crushed me. Every day with Lila was a deeper hole into a dark area that was full of the danger I’d avoided.

It took every ounce of energy to stay away.

We’d crossed the line of just sex. She wanted to be, to continue on with the warped relationship we had evolved into, but I couldn’t.

Still, my dick was constantly hard, the memory of being inside her a driving force of multiple-times-a-day masturbation.

I managed to keep my distance throughout the week, but come the weekend, I failed.

Multiple nights in a row I tried to stay away but ended up at her door. The resulting anger in my failure only served to up the intensity. Everything was harder, needier, and borderline abusive, and it wasn’t all coming from me. She inflamed my sexual deviancy, accelerating an already high sex drive.

Another night of resisting, of sitting alone in my condo willing myself not to go to her. I was going to do it, resist her call.

I sat on the couch, my dick hard, begging to fail again. The urge was great, so I slid my hand into my pants and pulled it out. The head was red, angry, beads of precome leaking out. All I did was think about her, remember her mouth, her pussy wrapped around me, and I was aching for release.

The sound of my doorbell shook me from my thoughts and sent an ice-cold shock through me. It was enough to cool my dick down.

Looking through the peephole I saw her, and a groan rolled through me. It seemed, though I had managed to stay away, she couldn’t.

Fuck.

Why? Why couldn’t I stop this? Why was it so hard to stay away from each other?

“Go away, Delilah,” I said through the door.

She shook her head. Her unmasked eyes were almost lifeless but held an edge of desperation.

“No.”

She needs us.

She shouldn’t.

With a sigh, I twisted the two locks and swung the door open.

“I can't save you,” I said, holding my hands up.

She shook her head. “I'm not looking for a savior.”

“I can't love you.” Definitely not. “So what is it you want?”

Her head tilted slightly to the side, fingers twisting in front of her as her brow scrunched while she contemplated.

Most women would have lashed out at me, but she kept coming back. No matter how many times I tried to push her away, she stared up at me with those beautiful, empty eyes and called to the beast.

“I want you to not stop,” she said.

I blinked at her, stunned. Stopping was necessary for her survival. “I have to.”

She shook her head. “No, you don't.”

I needed to stop my internal comparisons of her to average women. Lila wasn't and would never be average. I didn't know what happened to her, but I did know it created the tortured, empty soul in front of me.

And the darkness from that was a beautiful pit that my own darkness wanted to crawl into.

“I know you want me as much as I want you,” she said.

Even though her words were said with clarity, they lacked the strength. She wasn’t sure, which was odd to me as I’d pretty much attacked her with how much I wanted her on more than one occasion.

“Want is a passing fling, and it will pass.”

“I don't want it to.”

She stepped forward, a determined look on her face. I blinked down at her, once again surprised by her tenacity. Normally she was so submissive to everyone, wanting approval, clawing at favorable emotions. She placed her palms against my chest, fisting the loose fabric of my T-shirt.

“What are you doing, Lila?” I asked as my heart kicked into high gear, hammering inside my chest.

She pulled on my shirt, yanking me down to her level. Her lips ghosted mine, fucking obliterating my resistance down to a small thread keeping the beast at bay.

“I need you, Nathan.”

A groan left me as I shuddered. Fuck. A few more words and there would be no way to stop myself from taking her to my bed and fucking her until we both passed out.

“I need your body over mine, your cock inside me. I need you to touch me. Bite me. Mark me.”

My cock thumped hard in my pants, barely restrained by my boxer briefs, while my breath picked up.

Fuck, I wanted her, needed her just as badly as she did me.

I reached up and cradled her head in my hands, my fingers fisted in her hair. The last fraying edges that held me back began to snap.

What was it about her? Why couldn’t I stay away?

She was wrecking me, and I reacted like any other animal fighting against their end.

“You’re killing me.”

My lips were on hers, drinking her in like she was an oasis in the desert.