Page 68 of Cruel When He Smiles (Sinners of Blackthorne U #3)

Nate

Liam’s eyes change.

One second, they’re filled with satisfaction, with that slow, dangerous kind of amusement, like he’s savoring every fucking word that just came out of my mouth.

The next, they go dark and I know exactly who I’m looking at right now.

Not Liam the golden boy, not even Liam the manipulator. This is the predator. The one who sees something he wants and takes it. The one who doesn’t understand love without ownership.

The one I fucking crave.

Every muscle in my body goes taut, not in fear, but in anticipation. My breath catches as he leans in, fingers locking harder around my jaw. His head tilts, assessing me like he’s choosing which way to carve me open.

“Say it again,” he demands, his breath brushing my lips like a promise.

I swallow hard, but I don’t fucking hesitate. “You let me rewrite you.”

A slow, satisfied exhale leaves him, his grip flexing against my face. “And?” he prompts, pulling my head back until my throat is bared to him.

“Your pain belongs to me.”

It’s instant. His whole body reacts; his fingers clamp harder, his breath hitches, and then he fucking growls. Not loud, not for show, but from somewhere buried inside him, the sound rumbling through my chest and making my cock twitch.

Liam’s hand slides down to grip my throat hard enough to remind me who the fuck he is—the one who holds the blade and still bleeds for me.

His eyes are so dark they’re almost black, heat and danger swirling together until I can’t tell them apart. His other hand lands on my hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

And then he kisses me—brutal, messy, his teeth catching my lip. The copper tang blooms between our mouths, and I realize I’m bleeding too. He fucking hums into it.

When he pulls back, I see a small split in his lip, too. My pulse jumps when his thumb drags across it, smearing the bead of blood. He sees me watching and grins “Want a taste, Pup?”

I can’t even lie. “Please.”

His grin is wicked. He presses two fingers to the cut I gave him, then drags them over my lower lip. “Open.”

The taste hits my tongue, and heat pools low in my gut, making my hips jerk forward without thought. Liam watches me swallow it, his breathing jagged now. “God,” he mutters, “you look obscene.”

“You taste better,” I shoot back, because I want him unsteady.

It works. He’s on me again in a second—mouth crushing mine, pushing the rest of that blood between our tongues. I groan into it, tasting him, tasting us, my hands gripping his bicep like I’m drowning.

When he breaks the kiss, his lip’s bleeding again, mixed with his saliva and trickling down his chin. I catch it with my mouth, sucking the skin just below, and he shudders.

“Jesus, Nate,” he rasps. “You’ll make me lose control.”

“That’s the point.”

He laughs, then his hand grips my throat again as he leans over me. “Take off your boxers, you’re going to take everything I give you tonight,” he says. “Every bruise. Every drop. Every fucking inch.”

I blindly obey, shimmying out of them. His hand drops lower, stroking me with bloody fingers, red streaking across my skin, and I fucking lose it.

My hips push up into his grip like I’m trying to fuck myself on it.

My head tips back, breath coming fast, and when his fingers slip between my thighs, pressing against my hole, I swear my vision flickers.

“You want me inside you with my blood still on your skin?” he asks, leaning down until his mouth is at my ear. “Want me to fuck you like this so you remember it every time you touch yourself?”

“Yes,” I breathe. “Fuck—yes.”

He kisses me again, and his teeth sink into my bottom lip until I hiss.

When his finger slips inside, slicked up with lube I had no idea he even grabbed, my breath catches.

“My slut’s already open for me,” he murmurs, and his eyes flick down to the streak of his blood across my ribs.

“Bet if I slid in right now, you’d take me to the hilt. ”

The groan that tears from me isn’t voluntary.

He sinks a second finger in, watching my face the entire time. Another finger joins, stretching me wider, and I hear the quiet, pleased sound he makes in his throat. My body’s moving with him before I realize it, hips rolling into his hand. “Liam—fuck—”

“Want more?”

“Need you,” I rasp, tugging against his grip on my wrist.

His smile is pure satisfaction as he lines up against my hole. The head presses in, and my breath stutters. He pushes slowly until he’s buried deep, and my nails dig into his forearm hard enough to leave marks.

“Oh— fuck —”

He leans down, his mouth at my ear. “Shh. You can take it. You’ve taken worse from me.”

The words punch a noise from my throat I’ve never made before.

Then he starts moving. Hard. Deep. Each thrust rocks me, drives heat down my spine.

The blood on his ribs smears against my stomach with every push, hot skin to hot skin, the metallic scent curling around us like it’s part of the oxygen.

His pace is merciless—meant to brand, not just fuck. Every thrust drags the slick heat of his blood against me, streaking my skin like he’s painting me in proof that I belong here, under him, with him inside me.

His hand clamps my throat, forcing my head back so I can’t do anything but take it, breathe him in, and let the rhythm crush every last thought out of me.

Then, without slowing, he reaches toward where I dropped the knife. His eyes lock on mine as he flips it in his palm and offers it to me.

“Use it,” he says, and his thrusts never falter. “Mark me again. I want to see how much of me you can wear before you can’t breathe without it.”

My fingers curl around the handle automatically, my pulse deafening. He presses the knife harder into my grip, his other hand tightening on my throat until I’m dizzy with the mix of oxygen and power he’s feeding me.

“Do it, Pup,” he murmurs. “Make me bleed for you.”

I don’t even think. The blade kisses across his shoulder, shallow enough to sting, deep enough to instantly well with red. He groans—low, guttural, pleased—and fucks me harder, his forehead pressing to mine as the warm blood hits my chest, smearing across both of us.

“That’s it,” he rasps, and it’s not pain in his voice—it’s hunger. “You look beautiful covered in my blood, baby.”

It’s everywhere now; slick between where our bodies meet. Every time he drives into me, the mess spreads, coating, marking, sealing something in place that I know I’ll never scrape off, even if I wanted to.

“More,” he breathes, hips snapping forward with brutal precision. “Put more of me on you.”

I drag the blade again, lower this time, across the side of his ribs. He shudders, eyes fluttering for a moment before snapping back to mine. “Pretty little thing with a blade in his hand,” he says, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in so deep I gasp.

My hand’s shaking around the knife, but not from fear—from want. From the way he’s watching me like I’m the only one he’d ever kneel for, even though we both know he’s still the one holding me open, still the one fucking me into the mattress until I can’t breathe without tasting him.

Without thinking, I lift my bloody hand and smear it across his cheek.

“Messy,” I rasp, watching it drip.

“Yours,” he says without hesitation. “All of it.”

I roll my hips up into him, and he groans again, this time louder, and his hand tightens on my pulse. “You’re keeping it on you,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing my pulse. “Every smear, every drop, until you smell like me tomorrow.”

I press the flat of the blade against his jaw, tilting his face toward mine. “Then fuck me harder.”

His grin is slow and dangerous. His hips slam forward causing the knife to drop from my hand and air to leave my lungs in a sharp gasp. The blood between us slicks hotter with every thrust, his chest smearing against mine, the metallic tang thick in the air.

His hand slips between us and wraps around my cock, still streaked with red, and the sight alone is enough to snap me. I come hard, and it hits like violence, tearing through me so hard I can’t breathe. Liam follows a second later, hips grinding deep as he spills inside me, groaning my name.

The world tilts, my body sinking into the mattress, my limbs heavy, sated. Liam collapses against me, his breath ragged, his heart pounding against mine.

For a long moment, neither of us moves or speaks. Then Liam lifts his head, his hazel eyes locking onto mine, something dangerous and soft flickering in them.

“You’re never leaving me,” he murmurs, a slow, satisfied smirk curling at the edges of his mouth. “I won’t let you.”

I let out a breathless laugh, my bloodied fingers dragging through his sweat-dampened hair, feeling the way his body still shudders against mine. My limbs are heavy, my pulse slowing, but my mind is still spinning—because I know what this is.

It’s toxic and all-consuming. It’s the kind of love that destroys.

And I don’t give a single fuck.

“You’re not leaving me either, Callahan,” I counter, my voice hoarse, raw from everything we just did, from everything we just became. “Don’t think I’ll fucking let you, either.”

Liam’s fingers trail down my sides, possessive even in the afterglow. His lips brush against my jaw, his breath warm against my skin as he chuckles, pleased. “My soul already belongs to you, Pup. The only way I’m leaving is if I fucking die.”

A shiver shoots through me. I believe him. Every single word.

Liam doesn’t do half-measures. He doesn’t do things lightly. When he decides something is his, he means it. And I don’t have to ask to know—he’s already decided I’m his in a way no one else ever will be.

And fuck, I want it.

I need it.

I press my lips against his, tasting him, letting myself sink into him, into this, into the mess we’ve made together. And I know, deep down, this isn’t something I’ll ever be able to walk away from.

Liam Callahan is in my blood now.

And I’ll burn before I let him go.