Page 46 of Bitten & Burned

Twenty-One

YOU’RE SO MEAN

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

I just… needed to be somewhere else.

And I didn’t want to think.

He’d said Anton was waiting for me.

Perfect. Because I needed to be with Anton.

I swallowed thickly and kept walking until I was outside Anton’s door. I hoped he wasn’t upset with me about what had happened earlier. He was only trying to make me feel better, and I’d snuck away from him over it because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

I knocked on his door and then pushed it open. “Anton?” I murmured, pausing at the door.

“Rowena?” I heard footsteps. “Come in.”

I opened the door fully and stepped inside, my hands still on the robe wrapped around me.

His eyes widened when he saw me. I realized I must look a sight.

Wild hair. Barely dressed. Barefoot.

And he was… gods, as gorgeous as ever. Tailored trousers and a button-down, sleeves rolled to his elbows, top three buttons unbuttoned. More unbuttoned than not. His hair was annoyingly perfect, and his eyes were dark as he looked at me, his tongue coming out to wet his lips.

“I…” I began as I stepped closer to him. “I’m sorry about earlier…”

“Gods, Rowena, you don’t have to apologize, I should be the one—”

“Please, I don’t want to think, Anton, I… everything keeps happening and the sigil keeps burning, and I just want… I want to be happy again. Like we were on the boat. Can I have that? Please?” Tears pricked my eyes, and I thought he was going to cry too, with that look he was giving me.

“Anything,” he murmured. “Anything. Whatever you want, Rowena, I will get us there again.”

The bond thrummed with his promise, warm and indulgent, like velvet wrapping around me.

“Vael called my father, and he’ll be here in the morning. Can I hide from him in here?”

Anton’s face broke into a smile. “You want to hide from your father with me? I’ve never been any father’s favorite, so I don’t know why I would be with yours.”

I laughed, just slightly.

“What are you wearing?” he asked, reaching out to touch the fabric.

“It’s Dmitri’s,” I replied.

“Ah, that would explain things. It’s one-size-fits-dire wolf…”

I laughed again.

“Looks better on you,” he murmured, his fingers toying with the lapel as he moved in closer. “I think everything looks better on you, though, so I may be biased…”

“Everything?” I asked, eyebrows raised as I stepped back and shrugged the robe off, pulling my chemise up and over my head to follow it.

They both hit the floor, and Anton’s eyes widened. Darkened. He worried his lip between his teeth, leaving it pink as he drank me in.

“You look better in everything, and nothing also looks amazing on you. You’re a walking enigma,” he murmured.

I reached for the remaining buttons on his shirt. He covered my hands in his. “Before you do that, tell me… darling, what do you want?”

“Specifically?”

He nodded once.

“You. On the floor. Beneath me. Until I can’t remember anything but your name, Anton.”

He sank to his knees, his hands on the buttons of his shirt, slowly opening them all as he gazed up reverently, reaching for me.

I knelt, letting my hands touch his skin. The hair on his chest, I raked my fingers through it and smiled.

He lay back without hesitation, the warmth of his body searing through me even before we touched again.

His shirt fell open, revealing his bare chest like an offering, like a canvas—and I was already painting him with my hands: over the ridges of his ribs, the slope of his chest, the trail of hair leading below his navel.

I straddled his hips and settled there, slowly, deliberately, grinding against him as his eyes fluttered closed and his throat worked through a groan.

“Gods, Rowena…”

I reached down to undo his trousers, and he shifted, helped push them down to his knees, where he kicked them off.

His hands came to my thighs, sliding up to my hips and gripping hard enough to bruise, pulling me down against him. I rocked again. He bucked up in response, the tension between us igniting like kindling to flame.

“Say it,” I whispered. “Say my name again.”

“Rowena,” he breathed, then again, harsher this time. “Rowena. You have no idea what you do to me.”

I leaned forward, hair falling around us like a curtain, and kissed him—deep and possessive, tongue and teeth. He matched me, kiss for kiss, moan for moan, his cock pressed hot and insistent between us.

“Now,” I whispered, breaking the kiss just long enough to reach between us. “I want you now.”

He didn’t argue. Just helped me line him up, and, when I sank onto him, it was everything.

He was everything.

I moved slowly at first, savoring it. The fullness. The stretch. The way his head fell back and he cursed again, clutching my hips like he couldn’t believe I was real.

And then I picked up the pace.

Took what I wanted.

What I needed.

Each roll of my hips drove us both closer to oblivion. Each gasp, each breathless cry, tore something loose in me. The pain, the fear, the grief—they didn’t vanish. The sigil still burned on my skin. But, for a few sacred minutes, it paused.

Anton’s hands roamed my body like he was memorizing every inch, and when I began to fall apart, his voice followed me down.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s my wicked darling. Let go. I’ve got you.”

My pace shifted—slow, then fast, then slow again—cruel in the way I withheld rhythm. The way I teased us both to the edge and then pulled us back. I wanted to see him like this. Keep him like this. Strung out and trembling beneath me.

Anton was gasping now, hands splayed on my waist like he didn’t trust himself to hold on. His brows furrowed in concentration, in awe, in desperation.

“Rowena—gods—”

“I know,” I whispered, leaning down to nip at his bottom lip. “I feel it too.”

His hands slid up, up, worshipful, reverent. He traced the curve of my waist, the swell of my breasts, the place where I met him again and again.

“You’re so wet,” he rasped. “So perfect. So—gods, Rowena,—you were made to do this. Made to ride me like this.”

The words made my spine tingle. I moaned, arched, and dragged my nails down his chest. He shuddered.

I clenched around him on purpose, slowly, deliberately, and his mouth fell open in a silent groan.

“Do you like that?” I asked, barely more than a breath.

He nodded, eyes glazed, teeth catching on a gasp. “You’re going to ruin me.”

I rocked harder, angling my hips just right. “That’s the plan.”

His hands flew to my hips again, holding on as I took him deeper, sharper. Our bodies slick with sweat, the sounds of us wet and obscene and gorgeous.

“Don’t stop,” he whispered.

“I won’t.”

He reached up, pulled me down for another kiss—this one hungry, messy, his fangs grazing my lip. Like he wanted to swallow me whole. Like he already had.

“You feel so good,” I murmured into his mouth. “I could fuck you forever.”

His moan turned into a growl. “Then do it.”

A growl one second, begging the next.

“Oh gods, I can feel it, please… please, Rowena… It’s right… oh fuck, it’s right there…”

I grinned against his mouth, slow and wicked. “Oh no, no, no,” I whispered. “You don’t get to beg for forever and then ask me to rush.”

Anton’s groan was half-laugh, half-agony. His head dropped back against the floor as I slowed the rhythm again—luxurious, languid, grinding rather than thrusting. Letting him feel every inch. Letting him ache for more.

“Rowena,” he choked, hips twitching upward, restrained only by my hands on his chest. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“Not kill,” I said softly. “Keep you. Stretch it out. Make you feel everything.”

I braced my hands on his chest and rolled my hips just right. He cursed. His fingers dug into the floor.

“Gods,” he gasped, eyes squeezed shut. “You’re so—fuck—you’re so mean.”

I leaned down, lips brushing his ear. “You like me when I’m mean.”

He whined. Whined.

“You like it when I use you like this. Like you’re mine.”

“I am yours,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ve always been yours.”

My breath caught. I sat up again, hair wild, back arched, and rode him just enough to draw another broken sound from his lips. Then I stopped altogether, holding him inside me, watching him writhe.

His fists curled against the floor.

“Do you want to come, Anton?” I asked, voice dark silk. “Do you want me to let you?”

He opened his eyes—barely—and nodded, eyes wide with need. “Yes. Please. Please, Rowena.”

“Not yet.”

I rolled my hips once. Twice. Just enough to keep him desperate.

“Gods above,” he panted. “You’re a menace.”

“You love it.”

“I love you.” His voice cracked. “Even like this. Especially like this.”

I stilled again. Leaned down. Kissed him soft and sweet, like a promise. “Then prove it. Be good. Wait for it.”

Anton’s hands, previously reverent and still, suddenly weren’t. They slid up my thighs with purpose, grasping my hips, grounding me.

Then higher.

His thumbs brushed over my nipples, already peaked and flushed, and I gasped, bracing my palms against his chest.

“Anton—”

But he was done being good.

One hand cupped my breast, thumb flicking over the sensitive tip until I whimpered. The other slid between us, fingers finding my clit with unerring precision.

I jolted.

“Shh,” he murmured. “Let me. Just for a moment. You’ve had all the control, darling—let me have this.”

He circled my clit with practiced ease, teasing, and coaxing, until my breath came ragged and my rhythm stuttered.

“Anton—gods—”

“You feel so good like this,” he groaned, rolling his hips up to meet mine. “So perfect. So mine.”

He was panting now, fingers never stopping, mouth dragging hot kisses across my collarbone. “I love you,” he whispered, over and over again. “I love you—I love you—I love you—”

The words tangled with his breath, his fingers, his thrusts, his everything.

My release built so slowly, it was upon me before I realized. There was no tipping over the edge; there was just pleasure, just Anton giving it to me. I practically sobbed through it, his fingers relentless, his cock hard inside me as I squeezed him.

And, when I finally let him—when I gave a single breathless nod and whispered, “Now, Anton, now”—he came undone beneath me with a cry that sounded like worship.

“I love you—fuck—I love you—gods, Rowena—”

He clutched at my hips, head thrown back, gasping the words like he could etch them into my skin, into my soul.

And when he finally stilled, trembling, spent, he pulled me down against him, wrapping his arms around me tightly.

Still whispering it.

“I love you. I love you. I love you…”

We stayed like that for a while, tangled and quiet, my head tucked against his shoulder as his hand lazily stroked my spine. His heartbeat had slowed, but mine hadn’t. Not entirely. I was still floating, still basking in the weight of everything he’d said.

Of everything he’d meant.

“Anton?” I asked quietly, my voice muffled against his skin.

“Mm?”

“Did you… Did you mean it?”

I lifted my head just enough to look at him, to see the way his lips curved into a lopsided smile. He blinked up at me, soft and glowing and full of something that could only be called wonder.

He chuckled.

“Didn’t I say it enough?” he asked, brushing a lock of hair behind my ear. “Once is a throwaway. I believe I said it at least a dozen times.”

“You did,” I whispered, blinking quickly.

He tilted his head to kiss my forehead. “And I meant it every single time. You never have to wonder with me. Not about that.”

I curled into him again, letting my hand rest over his heart. It beat strong and sure beneath my palm. Slowly. But strong. I’m sure mine felt like a hummingbird compared to his.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “You’re safe here, Rowena. For as long as you want to be.”

“I know,” I murmured.

And, for the first time in what felt like days, I believed it.

And then I looked up at him again, the words on my tongue so heavy and certain they practically ached.

“I love you,” I whispered.

His expression shifted—like the whole world stilled around him, and he was afraid to even breathe.

“I love you,” I said again, firmer this time. “I do.”

He blinked. Swallowed. And then I leaned in close, kissed the corner of his mouth, and whispered it a third time against his lips.

“I love you.”

The sound he made was almost a laugh, but it broke at the edges. “You’re going to ruin me,” he murmured, kissing me softly. “Gods, what a way to go.”

We lay there after that, no more words needed. Just the quiet beat of hearts pressed together. His fingers traced idle patterns on my back. My nose was tucked beneath his jaw.

And when sleep came, it came easily—the sigil blessedly quiet, if only for now.

Finally.