The Cage: 6. Unveiling and Testing

The room smelled of sweat, sex, and raw surrender.

She lay sprawled across the thin mattress, her wrists still tingling where he’d pinned them, her thighs slick with the evidence of what they’d done. Every breath hurt—in the best way. Her chest rose and fell as if she’d run miles, though she hadn’t moved at all. He’d moved her. He’d wrecked her.

And yet she wasn’t broken. Not in the way she’d feared. She was something else now—raw, burning, alive.

He lay beside her, one arm draped lazily over her stomach, his body heavy with a rare kind of stillness. For the first time since she’d met him, he didn’t seem like the unshakable predator who had stalked her mind and body for weeks. He seemed almost… human.

The silence was unbearable. She wanted to ask a thousand questions, but the words tangled in her throat. She shifted slightly, enough to feel the brush of his skin against hers. Her pulse stuttered.

His eyes opened. Those dark, fathomless eyes. And he look