Page 30 of Cruel Pawn (Cruel Duet #1)

My heart skipped and dropped, and kept falling, falling.

I fell so far down that I didn’t think I would ever claw my way back up.

But if falling involved Arden bringing me the heads of men who had tormented my memories for years, I wouldn’t even try to get up.

I’d embrace the fall. And that made my breath as short, my skin as cold, my head as dizzy as any fight for my life.

Actually, I’d rather fight for my life than feel this. Because there was so much emotion that my chest hurt, and there wasn’t the physical space for it to fit inside me.

“Say something,” Arden murmured, watching every feeling track across my face.

I swallowed. “Get on the bed, Arden.”

“Where should I put the head, my opera? Here, where you can see? Or should I spike it on the gates as a warning that there are consequences for harming Priya McFadyen?”

I didn’t even correct the name. My breathing came faster, my heart a gallop against my ribs. “Gates,” I replied, not recognising the low, rasping voice that came from my throat. “I don’t want him to watch us.”

Arden’s response could only be categorised as a growl. My mouth went dry at the way he stared at me, like he would devour me whole until there was nothing left which he hadn’t consumed.

Then he ran out the door, taking the head with him. A laugh expelled itself from my chest, pleasant warmth taking its place, clashing with the all-consuming inferno that blazed across my skin, burning my nipples into demanding points under my shirt, making my pussy slick with need.

I fixed my eyes on the door, and the second Arden reappeared I rushed at him, driving my feet into the floor to launch myself up.

He caught me with a groan, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, bruising his lips with a rough kiss, the force and brutality of it the same as any fight.

My stomach flipped at the deep, animalistic sound that left my captor when he ripped his mouth from mine.

The chains rattled, but for the first time I couldn’t give a shit about them.

“My opera,” he said like a declaration, walking towards the bed. “My Priya. My pretty poison.”

And because I was feeling possessive of him, I sank my fingers into his hair and dragged him back to my lips, hissing against his mouth, “My captor.”

He moaned like I’d confessed my love for him and met my demanding kiss with a fervent need of his own, his hands trembling where they braced the backs of my thighs.

Air rippled over me as he walked me backwards; goosebumps danced across my skin at the vulnerability.

He could take me anywhere, do anything. Why did I like that?

When my back hit the soft covers on the bed, I yanked hard on Arden’s hair. “Don’t be gentle.”

The sheer glee that lit his dark eyes made me a little nervous. So did the chain he yanked out from under his tight black T-shirt, and the way he never looked away from me splayed on the bed beneath him even as he unclipped the key from it.

“Hands on the headboard, my opera,” he ordered, and no force could have stopped me obeying that order. The steely confidence infusing his voice made me so weak.

My heart skipped as I put my hands on the cold wood of the headboard, a rush of tingles moving down my chest under my borrowed shirt as he locked one of the padlocks instead of releasing me. My stomach squirmed, nerves tangling with lust until I could only think of getting him inside me.

I tested my range of freedom, unable to explain the butterflies that filled my belly when I found my hands locked to the headboard. He left the slack on my ankle, but only so he could widen my thighs and stare at where I wept for him.

“Say it again,” he ordered, hands skimming up my sensitive inner thighs, a low, satisfied noise rumbling from him when my hips jolted, riding the air. “Call me yours again.”

“My captor,” I breathed, all my focus on where he touched me.

His hands were like molten ore as they glided under the hem of my shirt, letting it caress my skin until I was sensitive anywhere.

The kisses he placed on my hip, my stomach, and my ribs left burning imprints.

Every touch intensified my need until I couldn’t take it as he pushed the shirt higher, the wicked gleam in his eyes telling me he saw every reaction I tried to hide.

“Again,” he commanded, dark eyes flicking up to my face, locking with mine as his mouth lowered, teeth skimming the underside of my breast.

“Arden,” I groaned, right on the edge of pleading.

“Not what I want to hear, my pretty opera.” Teeth caught my nipple and bit hard. My whole body arched off the bed, the silken brush of skin to skin like a gift after hours of thinking he’d abandoned me. “Again.”

“My captor,” I whimpered when he bit my other nipple, stimulation like a lightning bolt from my breast to my clit.

“Again.”

“My—” The name died in a cry when he knocked my thighs wider with his hips and sank his cock deep without warning.

I was so wet that the glide was divine, and when Arden rolled his hips, using that deadly knowledge of my body to find my G-spot within fucking seconds, my inner muscles clamped down hard.

“Remember, my pretty little opera,” he said, pressing each fingertip into my waist, gripping so tightly that the butterflies in my belly took off again, flying like maniacs. “You asked for this.”

Oh, fuck. I was glad I had my hands on the headboard because I desperately needed something to cling to when his hands tightened on my waist and he unleashed himself.

It became very apparent that he’d been holding back every time we fucked, caging the dark, wild thing that stared out at me through his eyes.

Now uncaged, he took me so hard my inner thighs would wear bruises in every spot his hips crashed into them.

His cock carved a path of ruthless pleasure through my pussy, so fast, so unrelenting, that I could barely catch my breath.

I’d asked him not to be gentle and, oh, there was no danger of that.

My head spun. My heart, against all odds, melted into a pliant puddle.

It was everything I’d ever wanted. So rough that I could just about handle it.

Possessive, snarling, and so hot that it killed me.

His hand framed my throat, his palm blazing hot against my skin. “Say it again.”

I gave up all pretence, gave up the stubborn part of me that refused to admit I wanted him. “You’re mine,” I gasped.

My eyes crossed when he rewarded me by grinding the head of his cock into that killer spot right as everything grew tight and achy inside me.

“Yes,” he purred, his voice so rough, so sexy, so goddamned possessive as he demanded, “And who do you belong to?”

My head thrashed on the bed, a hot tingle in my belly when his hand tightened around my throat to hold me still, demanding an answer with a brutal squeeze.

The world took on a hazy, sparkling quality as he controlled the flow of blood to my head, and I felt him everywhere.

His hand around my neck, where a single violent whim could end my life.

His thighs crashing into mine, fusing us together.

His other hand brazen and claiming as it swept a broad, claiming stroke up my stomach to squeeze a breast, his thumb taunting my nipple.

“You,” I whimpered, the sensations building, impossible to contain in a single body. “Arden, please.”

I thought he was giving me everything, but my plea unlocked a level of animalistic insanity in him that had a keening cry shivering off my tongue.

Oh, god. So fast. So deep. Intense, jackhammering thrusts that pushed me up the bed, that had me yanking at the chains, frantic to touch him, to mark his body with my own bruises, to wrap my arms around him and dig my fingernails into his skin so we became one.

“That’s right,” he said in a voice cut from shadows and midnight and blood so dark it was black.

“You are mine, Priya. This body that trembles for me and only me is mine. These tits that are swollen, aching for touch are mine.” I cried out when he twisted my nipple, my back arching off my bed, inner muscles gripping him so tight that the next drag out was slower, the thrust back in punishing.

“This throat is mine. This hair is mine.” His other hand left my nipple to grab a fistful of hair, making my mouth fall open at the rush of tingling danger that shot from my scalp all the way down my spine.

“This cunt that’s so fucking close to the edge is mine.

But most importantly, this stubborn, pretty little mind that fights me so viciously but can’t help but submit is all fucking mine. ”

“Arden,” I gasped, too far gone to be embarrassed by the whine that followed.

Twin sensations assaulted me when he yanked on my hair at the same time his hand tightened around my throat.

“All your orgasms are mine. Every last fucking one, whether it’s my cock you’re strangling as you come, or my fingers you soak, or my tongue you drown in cum, or your own fingers as you bring yourself to release.

They all belong to me so give me what’s mine, pretty girl. Come for me.”

A moan ripped out of me with startling force, and the first wave of pleasure struck me dumb. It was too much, too good. My body convulsed, my neck arching into his grip, hands straining the chains, everything else in the world disappearing for one blissful minute.

When my mind floated back down to my body, as lightweight and carefree as a feather, Arden had wrapped both hands around my neck as he drove into me like a man possessed, my name spilling from his lips over and over like a cult leader praising their god.