Would it have been so wrong to take more pleasure? Before the pain that was promised?

I’ll carve her up.

Her eyes closed. Her hands curled around his shoulders. She knew what she wanted.

They had an hour.

No cameras. No audio recordings.

An hour.

She rubbed her body lightly against his. Take more pleasure. Because if the escape plan forming in her mind didn’t work, she’d know only pain in the time to come.

No, I want pleasure.

“I don’t . . . I don’t care why you married me.” Her voice came out soft and husky.

His head lifted. She couldn’t read the emotion behind the strong lines and angles of his face. And she’d always thought he seemed open? What a lie.

Shifters are born to lie. Lyle’s words. She just hadn’t realized—he was the one with the best skills at deception.

“I don’t care why,” she said again. She didn’t even want to talk about that genetic match bull right then. She just wanted . . . him.

Maybe he had been playing her, the way she’d intended to play him.

Catch a hunter. Spring your trap.

They were both trapped then, and they had only each other. So she simply said what she felt. “Before he comes back, I want to be with you again.”

His pupils expanded until only black seemed to fill his gaze. No more bright blue.

Slowly, he lowered her to the floor. Her feet touched the stone. Okay, right, she got that this wasn’t exactly the honeymoon suite. The cage bars weren’t sexy. The cot was narrow. The—

“Your timing is shit,” he told her, voice roughening with arousal.

Um, yeah, true, but it wasn’t like she had a rain check option going on then.

Gage pulled in a deep breath. “Don’t cry out,” he told her in that hard rasp that sent shivers skating over her body. “He’ll hear, and I don’t want him hearing a single sound that you make for me.”

Kayla licked her lips. No screaming this time. Check. She could do that.

Could he? The guy had been pretty loud last time…

Then his hands were on her jeans. Yanking at the snap and jerking down the zipper. She kicked out of her boots and—

His fingers slid between her legs. Pushed up into her sex, and she gasped at the sensual touch.

Kayla rose onto her toes, trying to adjust to the feel of those long, hard fingers inside of her. She wasn’t ready, not yet, but—

His thumb pushed over her clit. His fingers withdrew. Thrust again.

Her knees did a little jiggle even as her sex tightened around his thrusting fingers. Just that fast, Kayla knew she was getting wet for him. Adrenaline and need fired her blood and her nails scratched over his arms as she pulled him closer.

When they kissed, there was nothing soft or gentle about it. Wild. Heat. Hunger.

Craving.

If this was her last time with him, she’d take everything he had. There was no control. No holding part of herself back.

Only lust. Only him.

He lifted her up into his arms. She loved his strength . . . when she’d feared that same strength in others. Her legs wrapped around his hips, and she held on to him as tightly as she could.

He positioned his cock at the entrance of her body. The broad head pushed past the sensitive flesh of her sex. He wasn’t thrusting deep yet. Gage still had his control.

She wanted that control to break. No, to shatter into a million pieces. She wanted him wild and desperate for her—the way she was for him.

Kayla’s mouth broke from his. Wolves liked to bite, almost as much as vampires. They liked their sex rough. Hard. Consuming.

Just the way she did.

Kayla pressed her mouth to his neck. Licked his flesh. Gage shuddered. Good, but . . . she wanted more. She opened her mouth. Put her teeth against him, right where the curve of his shoulder met his neck. Then she nipped him.

“Kayla . . . ”

She knew that wolves marked their mates this way. A bite to claim. Was she claiming him?

She wasn’t a wolf but . . .

Kayla let him feel the press of her teeth once more, and she could almost hear the rip of his control.

Better.

His hands hardened on her, digging into her hips, and he thrust deep. Gage drove into her with one fierce plunge. And it was exactly what she needed. What she wanted. Each withdrawal and thrust had his cock sliding right over her clit, and the sensual strokes made her whole body tighten. Pleasure. So close. So—

He took two steps, kept his tight hold on her, and Kayla found her back slammed against the cage bars. He was still thrusting into her and she loved it. But this position, sweet hell, it made him go in even deeper.

After living the last eighteen years only feeling rage and pain, this was what she’d hoped for.

Wild and hot.

Her breath panted out. She wanted to scream as the pleasure built, but she bit her lower lip to hold back the sound. He was swelling even bigger inside of her. Going even deeper. Yes. She’d never felt more connected to another person. Never felt as if she belonged to another, the way she belonged to him.

His eyes were on hers. So intense and deep. She could see the edge of his canines. Lengthening, because the beast was close.

Then he put those canines on her. In nearly the exact spot that she’d bit him. Kayla arched toward him. She wasn’t afraid of the beast that lurked just beneath the surface of the man. She wanted him to bite her.

But—

Gage yanked his head back. Thrust faster. One strong hand lifted and wrapped around the bar near her and she wanted to call out a warning to him. He’d be burned. It would hurt—