Marcus Ashford POV
The moment she begged me to let her go, I realized she wasn’t like the other girls who had passed through my life. Her eyes didn’t plead out of weakness alone. They held something else… a spark of caged rebellion, a desperate need to escape, a stubborn will to remain her own.
And that alone made me want her even more.
Ella wasn’t just a passing desire. She was prey worth the long game. The cat-and-mouse chase. I wouldn’t break her now. No, I’d wait until she came to me on her own, crawling, begging for my love, convinced that there was no escape except through me.
I moved closer, softening my features deliberately, as if I were a broken man searching for forgiveness. I gave her a smile laced with false regret, dropped my voice into a whisper that slid into her ear li
