It was difficult for me to associate nourishment with lust. I’d always craved orgasms and satisfaction, but I’d never needed them to survive. The desire I had for Tomb was a mixed up mess. I didn’t know where simple attraction and lust ended and my need to feed began. Did I just want him because I was hungry? Or was I getting hungrier because I wanted him?
I busied myself again by wrapping webs in small circles. It seemed innocent enough, but I was ready to slip them over my wrists at the first sign of my spider taking over. I’d sooner chain myself up than hurt him, although I wasn’t sure what good it would really do, since my webs seemed to follow my every whim. Still, it was worth a shot, and it gave me some semblance of hope. Knowing that I would snap and have zero control was a daunting thought.
Was this how my aunt felt during a frenzy? I was so fucking worried about her, and being in this tank left me to nothing but my thoughts. Thoughts about how she was doing. About the thundering hunger in my chest.
About Tomb...who was now doing sit-ups, showing off his abs.
I groaned and rubbed my hands down my face. “Can you please stop?” I asked him as he huffed out an exhale. His eyes flicked over to me, and he paused for a brief moment, but then he resumed.
Another drip of sweat trailed down his six pack. My mouth watered. “Fuck,” I cursed before turning to face the metal door locking us in.
“What’s wrong, Wid?” he asked, and I didn’t miss the teasing lilt in his rough voice.
“I need to get out of here,” I said, working faster to create thicker rope, praying that it would be strong enough to hold me.
“We aren’t getting out of here until they want us to,” he said before I heard him walk over and grab one of the water bottles. I couldn’t help but look over at him, watching as his throat bobbed with every gulp. His Adam’s apple, his dark stubble, his slick skin...it was erotic.
“Can’t you go all gargoyle and smash us the fuck out of here?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “Why do you think they put us in here? We’re buried under hundreds of feet of solid concrete and steel. If I bust through that door, it’ll collapse, and even if I could survive it, you couldn’t.”
I let out a frustrated growl and pulled at my hair. “What do they fucking want from us?” I yelled, my shrill voice echoing against the walls.
I was going to snap. I could feel my time running out.
It wasn’t until I felt his cold, marble-like skin against my back that I released the breath I was holding. “You’re starving, aren’t you?” he asked quietly, brushing my hair over my shoulder.
“I’m not,” I lied, hating myself a bit.
“You are,” he argued. “You need to feed. So feed from me.”
“No!” I said, shaking my head and closing my eyes against his tempting words. Why was he doing this to me?
“I want you to. Don’t overthink it,” Tomb whispered against the ridge of my ear.
I whirled around to face him, an incredulous expression on my face. “Don’t overthink it?” I asked, totally baffled by his attitude. “It’s all I can think about, and if you were smart, you’d be thinking about it too. Stay on your side of the tank, stop working out, and try to cover your cock for fuck’s sake.” I gestured at the growing length between us, then shoved at his chest.
He didn’t move an inch. “I don’t fear you, Widow,” he said in a husky voice.
“Why the fuck not? You should. You haven’t seen what I’m capable of, but I’ve told you. You should be screaming at them to let you out of here.”
Tomb tucked a strand of tangled red hair behind my ears. “How do you think it feels for them? When you drain their essence?”
His question caught me off guard. Images of all the men I’d killed flashed through my mind. “Why would you even ask that?” I asked in a shaky whisper. “I have no fucking idea. It’s not like my spider took a time out so I could interview them on how it felt being murdered.”
His cool hand cupped my jaw, and my spider preened beneath the surface. She wanted to surge forward. To claim his mouth and then the rest of his body. My shoulders shook, trying to hold her back.
“Stop fighting her. Stop fighting your hunger. I want you to feed on me.”
I shook my head, suddenly terrified. I didn’t want to do this. At least the men I’d fucked and killed had been strangers. Tomb and I were anything but.
When I tried to flinch away from him, his hold tightened around my face. Infuriated, I slapped his hand away. “Stop it,” I snapped.
“Give in,” he retorted, his dark eyes shining like glass.
I shoved my fingers into my hair, tugging at the strands. His proximity, his naked body, the lust coming off of him...I couldn’t take it. “No. You don’t know what you’re asking, so just stop it!”
My spider was digging into me, burrowing deeper and deeper, pulling at the webbed strings of my control. She was like the puppeteer, and I was hanging by a single silken thread.
But Tomb wouldn’t back off.
He crowded me again despite the fact that I was pacing, trying to get away, trying to put distance between the spider’s domination and my shaky hold.
When I tried to turn around again, Tomb cut me off, forcing me to stop with him in front and the wall against my back. He leaned in closer until his lips were just inches away from mine. “I know exactly what I’m asking, Motley,” he replied, his gaze seeping into me.
I whimpered when he wrapped his large hand around my wrist.
“Do you understand?”
No. I didn’t
