Scars from the abuse he’d endured growing up still marred his perfect skin, but only a bit. And then I found what I was looking for. The point of entry for the .50-caliber bullet that had torn through his body only days earlier. What would have ripped a normal man to shreds merely wounded Reyes. It entered through his rib cage and punctured a lung, exiting out his back. But all that remained as evidence of that night was a small scrape on his skin. I pushed his shirt down his arms farther and walked around to check his back. The scrape was better, but he healed even faster than I did.

“That’s not pity I feel, is it?” he asked, his voice suddenly hard.

I walked around to face him and crossed my arms over my chest. “What if it is?”

“I wouldn’t suggest it.”

“You can’t stop me from feeling sympathy for what you’ve been through, Reyes.”

“Would you care to test that theory?”

“Yes.” I raised my chin. “I would.” I put my hand on his chest, his skin scorching against my palm. “You are everything to me. How can I not empathize with you for what you’ve endured?”

The heat in the room magnified with his anger. “Stop.”

I shook my head and stepped closer. “No. I am in agony every time I think about what happened to you, and that’s not something you can change just because it makes you mad.”

And there it was. That blistering heat that burst from him when his temper got the better of him. “Would you like to know what true agony is?” he asked, his voice a husky shell, fragile, in danger of crumbling at any moment.

I stepped into the flames that engulfed him. Though I couldn’t see a fire, I could feel it, blazing across my skin, lapping over my nerve endings. I wrapped an arm around his waist, his hands still behind his back, his expression murderous. Then I reached up and touched his face. “If it meant I would know more of what you went through, then yes. If it would bring me closer to you, to understanding how you think, how I can best help you, then a thousand times yes.”

He bent his head, losing the game in the process, and whispered in my ear. “You got it.”

His arms were free at once and around me. He moved in a different time, a different reality. I wasn’t prepared. One second we were standing in the middle of his living room; the next I was against a wall, his body hard against mine, unforgiving. But if he meant to bring me agony, the only kind he brought was the anguish of longing for more. His mouth trailed hot kisses down my neck. His knee pushed my legs apart. His hand twisted into my hair while the other ripped my blouse and sought the weight of Danger and Will.

Then my pants were down and his blistering touch pushed inside me.

I gasped and took hold of his wrist as that familiar spark ignited in the core of my viscera. As molten lava spread through me, burning me from the inside out, I guided his fingers deeper and heard a growl a microsecond before I found myself on the ground. This was not the sensual being I had come to know. This was not an act of love but of punishment. Yet all he managed to do was drive me closer to the brink of ecstasy. It was as though he wanted to hurt me, to force me into not caring, not sympathizing, but that simply wouldn’t happen. I felt his desire mount as quickly as mine. As much as anger led him, so did his raw sexual appetite, and in that area we were a perfect match.

He lay on top of me with a hand around my throat to hold me beneath him as he unfastened his pants. I plunged both my hands in his hair, twisted my fingers in a firm grip, then pulled his mouth down to mine the moment he entered me. And a jolt of pleasure bucked inside me with his entrance. I breathed in the air he breathed out. I tasted him on my tongue. I sank my fingernails into his back when he pushed too hard too fast. But he didn’t stop. This wasn’t about pleasure. This was about reprisal. Revenge. His mouth tasted of wine and fire and his kiss grew just as hard as his f**king had become. A piercing arousal rippled through me as his thrust went deeper. He had clamped me to him so he could punish me, and yet even with all his anger and all his indignation, he did not hurt me. Just the opposite. Stinging tendrils of ecstasy spread throughout my body, hot and hungry and carnivorous.

But was he solely punishing me or was he enjoying the act as well? I wrapped my arms around his head as he thrust into me, his breathing labored, his body molding into a marble-like hardness, and I did the unthinkable. I whispered into his ear the last thing he would ever want to hear. But I had to know where he was at.

“Is this what he did to you?”

He hesitated. Faltered. And my body cried out. It wanted that peak it sought. That prize at the top. But my heart wanted Reyes. With me. Not fighting me. Not punishing me. But riding this incredible wave together.

There was a wall above my head and he braced a hand against it, our bodies still entwined and locked together. His mouth sought my ear. “You would still feel pity for me?” He nipped at my earlobe. The small amount of pain caused a sharp spike of arousal. “I am a monster, Dutch. A demon. Unworthy of you.”

I still had my arms wrapped around his head. “I don’t pity you, my beautiful man.” His hold tightened. “I have sympathy for what you’ve been through. And you are not a monster. If you want to punish me for the feelings I have – ” I put one hand on a steely buttock and led him deeper. He hissed in a breath. Pressed harder. “— then I accept.”

My body won. The heat swirling and bubbling inside me needed release, somewhere to go, and Reyes was just the one to set it free.