Anew: Book Two: Hunted by Josie Litton

his touch, my whole body ignites. I can
barely suppress a moan.
    His eyes darken. I have the sense that he is struggling
inwardly, weighing how much and what to say. Even so, his next words surprise
me.
    “What about the pleasure, Amelia?” he asks softly. “Do you
imagine that wasn’t mine, as well?”
    I stare at him, unsure what he is telling me. He was an
adolescent, in the throes of puberty. Of course, having sex would be physically
pleasurable but that doesn’t mean--
    A faint, sad smile flicks across his face. “There were
aspects of it--the dominance, the possession, the control--that appealed to
me.” He turns serious, somber even, as though he wants to be sure that I
understand the full import of what he is revealing. “They still do.”
    A tremor runs through me. My own nature isn’t remotely
submissive. On the contrary, it’s a good thing that I’m inclined to defiance or
I would never have survived. And yet, when I’m with Ian, something dark and
primal deep within me stirs to life. I become a being of pure sensuality,
craving his possession more even than light or air. Too easily I remember how
it felt to be beneath him, controlled by him, his cock thrusting into me,
driving us both to ecstatic release.
    Ian is staring at my mouth. “Don’t do that,” he says.
    “Do what?”
    “Wet your lips.”
    I didn’t realize I was doing so. I stop at once but it’s too
late. Heat flares in his eyes. Passion? Anger? I can’t tell. Starkly, as though
to discomfit me as much as I just have him, he says, “It reminds me of how good
it feels to be in your mouth.”
    The muscles at my core clench. We’re in the midst of an
ultra-elegant event attended by hundreds of the city’s elite. But suddenly all
I can think of the wetness pooling between my thighs.
    “We should go back inside.” My voice lacks even a hint of
conviction.
    “We could do that,” Ian agrees. He takes my elbow but
instead of guiding me back into the Crystal Palace, we go in the opposite
direction, down a short flight of stone steps and out across the lawn. My heels
sink into the soft ground. Excitement flares in me as I wonder what he is
contemplating.
    He slows his pace to accommodate mine but doesn’t halt until
we are twenty yards or more from the terrace, looking back at the ball. Light,
music, and laughter spill from the glittering pleasure dome. But it is
surrounded by deepening shadows and appears to be floating on a sea of
impenetrable darkness.
     “I used to come here when I was a kid,” Ian says
quietly. “There was an old restaurant at this location. Tavern on the Green, I
think it was called. It was torn down the winter I turned eight and the Crystal
Palace was built in its place. I found the whole process fascinating.”
    My throat tightens as I think of the innocent child he was
before his father drew him into his own twisted nightmare and tried to make him
nothing more an extension of himself. A part of me is fiercely glad that Marcus
Slade ultimately drove his high-powered sports car off the side of a cliff. The
world is a better place by far without him.
    We are standing beside an ancient, gnarled oak tree. Its
branches spread out above us, filled with new leaves unfurling from spring
buds. I breathe in the scents of the night and try to find solace in the simple
act of being close to Ian. It works, to a degree.
    Even so, I start when he lifts my hand and lays it, palm
down, against the rough bark. Quietly, he says, “I carved my initials into this
tree. Right about…there. Feel them?”
    Gradually, my fingertips find and trace the shape of an ‘I’
followed by an ‘S’. Two decades have passed since an eight year-old boy stood
here. The evidence of his presence has become blurred but I can still detect
it.
    “Why did you do that?” I ask.
    He hesitates, long enough for me to wonder if he’s going to
answer. Finally, he say, “That was the winter when I realized how bad things
really were between my