Page 21 of A Heist for Filthy Rivals (Mythic Holidays #3)

I brandish my dagger, baring my teeth like a trapped animal. “Don’t come any closer.”

He throws his knife away recklessly and keeps advancing. Despite the weariness in every step, a feral joy illuminates his eyes. I haven’t paid much attention to his looks so far, but with that light shining in his gaze, he’s downright beautiful.

“Stop,” I hiss.

He doesn’t. Not even when I place the dagger—the one that used to be his—against his throat.

He crowds against me, all of his heat, his muscles, and his smell in my space. He’s sweaty, bloody, with hints of a spiced cologne that he probably applied this morning, which is barely holding up against the musk of the day’s labor.

“You stink,” I whisper.

Ravager ducks his face toward my hair. I recoil a little, but I don’t stab him in the jugular, which I consider a feat of great mercy.

“How do you still smell amazing?” he whispers.

“I don’t.”

“To me, you do.”

“Go away,” I breathe, but there’s no force behind the words.

“I thought he killed you.” He places his hand against my lower stomach, like he’s trying to make sure I’m still whole. Still here.

What is he doing? First he grabs my thigh and calls me gorgeous, and now...

What the fuck is happening?

My breathing turns light and tenuous as heat from his palm flows into my body. He doesn’t move, and neither do I.

The way he’s touching me is more shocking than violence, more insidious than a snare. It disarms me, tempts me with something I’ve been craving for much too long.

I can’t think of anything to say. I don’t know how to react. I only know that I like the gentle way his fingers rest against my shirt.

We’re both buzzing from the strenuous heat of conflict, our blood high and our hearts racing from exertion. That’s all this is—the afterburn of violence. Nothing more.

He must be thinking something similar, because his expression dims and his jaw tightens. He starts to lift his hand from my waist—but I cover his fingers with mine, renewing the contact.

Slowly I lift my lashes, raising my eyes to his, confirming what my actions just told him.

Something wakes in his gaze. The closest thing I can compare it to is the sun rising in the blue of his eyes. A light renewed, intensified.

His hand shifts, nudging up my shirt until his palm directly contacts my bare skin. I quiver at the touch, yet I don’t move away, even though I should, even though my brain is screaming at me to stop this, to go ahead and slit his throat like I should have done downstairs.

“Say the word, and we can fight instead,” he says. “Maybe I’ll even let you kill me.”

But I don’t speak. I bite my lip, and I shift the tiniest bit closer.

When his hand slides under my shirt, I don’t stop him.

His rough, calloused fingers travel upward along my skin until they encounter the underside of my breast. Since I’m not gifted in that area, I don’t usually wear a brassiere or corset.

There’s nothing in the way, no restrictive garment to prevent his big, warm hand from covering my small breast completely.

I swallow hard, teasing his throat a little more with the dagger. At the warning of its edge, silent laughter sparkles in his eyes, and the creases at their corners deepen. His thumb drags lazily across my nipple. I suck in a breath and hold it, afraid that if I don’t, it will emerge as a moan.

There is a dead man in this room. I have his blood on me. And yet I’m standing here, letting his former companion touch me in a way that I can’t assign to any motive other than raw, irrational lust.

Ravager’s hand glides down the soft skin of my stomach, and then he works his fingers into my pants.

My knife hand is trembling. The word stop floats on my tongue, but I don’t say it, because I’m ensorcelled, spellbound by the magic of those coarse, warm fingers. He’s filthy, and he’s touching me, and I don’t know if I like it, but I need it.

His fingers probe the lips of my sex, and then his index finger strokes the tender bit of flesh between them.

“Got you,” he whispers.

I shift the knife away from his neck, but I don’t sheathe it.

I brace my wrist on his shoulder, my chest surging with helpless breaths.

Delicate spirals of pleasure unspool from the place where he’s stroking me.

I haven’t felt this decadently naughty in ages, and my body resents the idea of putting a stop to the delicious torture.

“I’m glad you killed him. It would have been such a shame if he’d cut off this little clit,” Ravager murmurs.

“Stop talking.”

“Can’t help it, love.” His fingers push lower into the tight confines of my pants, finding the wetness I’d conceal if I could. I’m embarrassed by how copious and obvious it is.

“Look how sensitive you are, sweetheart,” he croons, watching my face. “You haven’t been touched like this in a long time, have you?”

“None of your business.”

“I think it is.” His hand is still trapped between my legs, but he urges me backward with his body, walks me to the wall and pins me there.

“I think I’ll make it my business from now on, because the idea of anyone else doing this to you makes me fucking insane.

” He says the last two words through the vicious grit of his teeth.

“So I’m going to help you come, and then I’m going to kill you so no one else can ever make you feel like this again. ” He leans in and kisses my cheek.

“I thought you were glad I’m alive.”

“Only because I want to finish you off myself.”

“You’re beyond insane—oh… oh gods… oh fuck…” I falter as he starts rubbing my clit with two fingers. He dips and swirls lower, then returns to tantalize my clit again.

“Here we go, baby,” he whispers, his eyes still fixed on my face. I hate being watched so closely, perceived so openly. I’m not used to it. It makes me feel horribly vulnerable.

“I can’t come when you’re looking at me.” My voice is a raw gasp of admission.

“You will though. You’ll come for me any way I choose.

Look into my eyes, Devilry.” He pinches my clit lightly, and I snap my gaze back to his, magnetized, compelled.

His fingers are managing miracles in the tight space between my legs—dabbing my wetness, glazing everything with it, then quivering against my clit in a vicious, irresistible rhythm, coaxing my pleasure higher, higher.

His eyes look more gray than blue right now, narrowed and darkened, glinting with wicked joy.

His other hand cups my ass firmly, holding me, pressing me toward the peak.

My wrist is still braced on his shoulder, one hand in a death-grip on my knife, the other curled reflexively into the fabric of his shirt as I stare into his face.

His lips are so full and soft compared to the scruff along his jaw.

He’s devouring me with those crinkled, devilish eyes, and all the while he violates me so skillfully that I’m whimpering.

“Well done, sweetheart,” he praises me. “Go ahead and come.”

Helpless to the speed and skill of his fingers, I give in.

Pleasure bursts through me, leaving my body awash with sensation, the beautiful purging of all the negative energy I contain.

Ravager’s hands, clasped over my pussy and my ass, support me through the spasms of bliss.

I can’t help leaning into him, pressing my forehead to his chest, panting there, helpless.

His hand moves away from my rear, and the next second I feel pain beneath my left breast. He has another knife, and its tip is punching through my shirt and cleaving my skin.

He’s stabbing me. The piercing hurt of the blade twines with the golden afterglow of the orgasm.

“I told you what I was going to do,” Ravager says.

The knife is sliding in slowly, finding space between my ribs. I can’t stop it.

I deserve this, because I was idiotic enough to let him touch me. And right now, I’m so exhausted and bliss-drunk that I don’t even care if I die. Maybe he’ll hold me while I bleed out.

I release a soft sob, let my own knife fall from my fingers, and relax against him.

Ravager’s body goes rigid. He doesn’t keep pushing the knife in. The fingers of his other hand, still tucked inside my pants, flex against my pussy. I moan a little at the overstimulation.

“Fight back,” he whispers.

I keep my face buried in his chest as I shake my head.

“You’re just going to let me pierce your heart?”

I don’t reply, but I sob again. The movement makes the blade enter a little deeper, and I cry out at the fresh burst of pain.

“Fuck!” He pulls out the dagger and flings it aside. I hear it strike the floor.

He takes his hand from my pussy, drags me closer with wet fingers, and wraps both arms around me. His hold is cruel and crushing. “Stop making me care about you.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“This is a temporary truce, understand? I’m holding you for ten seconds and then I expect you to sack up and defend yourself like the warrior I know you to be. Don’t let me kill you without a fight.”

“Fine,” I mutter, with a belligerent sniff.

There’s silence for a few moments, and then he says hoarsely, “Do you know what I really want?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” I mumble.

“I want to suck on that sweet little clit of yours, and I want your tits in my mouth.”

A ripple of surprise rolls through my stomach. “You can’t say shit like that to people you plan to kill.”

“Why not?”

“It’s counterproductive.” I move to break his hold, and he lets me go.

I lift my shirt, inspecting the shallow cut between my ribs and showing him my left breast in the process.

He stands there, watching, until I pull my clothing back into place.

Then he licks my arousal off his fingers and wipes his hand on his pants, which I find both disgusting and strangely hot.

“You’re a filthy animal, you know that?” I tell him.

“Look who’s talking.”

I survey my clothing. Like him, I’m covered in plaster dust, grime, and blood—both mine, his, and Slaughter’s. “And somehow you still find me attractive.”