Page 8 of Intrigue (Dark Syndicate #4)

“You keep saying that,” I step closer, crowding her against the stacked boxes. The dim lighting softens her furious expression, highlighting flushed skin and parted lips. “Maybe find new words, Selene.”

She sniffs and runs a hand through her hair, the gesture shaky.

The storeroom is large but cluttered with crates and opened paintings, the soft light casting shadows over her flushed skin.

It’s dim enough that I can’t make out most of the details but light enough that I can see the scowl on her beautiful, perfect face, the way her lips part like she’s already imagining my hands on her.

“What are you really doing here, Sandro?” She snakes her hand around her waist as she asks this, her voice a bit shrill in the room, cracking with frustration and something darker. “Following me here like a lost dog isn’t flattering.”

“I wasn’t following you,” I lie, stepping closer still.

“Then why are you here?” she snaps. “Just to taunt me?”

“I’ll tell you if you’d stop answering your own questions!” My voice comes out rougher than intended, edged with impatience.

She swallows and relaxes her hand from her hips, her defiance evident. “Fine. I’m listening.”

I don’t think. I just act.

I pick her up, her gasp sharp and delicious, and push her onto the only table in the room that’s not cluttered, the wood creaking under her weight. Then I pin her down by her wrists, hard enough to bruise, my body pressing into hers.

“This is why I’m here, Selene. You. I’m here to fucking claim you.”

She struggles against me, baring her teeth like a wild animal and trying to push me off her but I’m lodged between her open thighs, her heat searing me through our clothes, so there’s not much she can do. Her skirt’s ridden up, exposing creamy skin I want to mark with my teeth.

“Sandro,” she gulps, breaking, her voice trembling with rage and need. “Can you just stop?”

“Look at me right now,” I growl, my grip tightening.

And she does. Under the arrogance and defiance, I see a fine trace of lust etched in those gorgeous eyes, a hunger that mirrors mine.

I run a hand across her cheeks, stopping at her left cheekbone where her scar used to be.

Now, there’s only a faint trace there, a ghost of her past I’ve memorized.

She shivers when I caress it, bringing her hands up to stop me but not fighting me when I press into her harder, my erection grinding against her core.

“You’re still so beautiful, God damn. I could stare at you all day and never grow tired. You’re perfect, and I’m gonna ruin you all over again.”

“Sandro—”

I let my fingers fall to the curve of her mouth and trap her words there, silencing her as my thumb smear across her lips.

“You asked me why I came and I’m telling you it’s because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.

Let me have you, Selene. All of you. Every fucking inch, right here, right now. ”

She shakes her head, pulling against my hold, her wrists straining in my bruising grip, nails scraping my skin. “Let me go, Sandro, or I swear—”

“Swear what? I can feel you shivering for me. You want me. I can feel it. It’s in your eyes. Fight it all you want but I know you’re gonna beg for it in the end, gonna spread those pretty legs and scream my name.”

“That’s all in your head. Whatever we had ended years ago. I’m going to get married to the man I love,” she snaps, but her hips twitch toward me like a moth to flame.

“You just think you love him. You physically shake for me, it’s so obvious, baby.

Why don’t you just ask for what I know you want,” I rasp, my hand sliding down her throat, squeezing just enough to make her gasp, her pulse pounding like a drum under my palm.

“I can smell your cunt from here, soaking through your panties, begging for my tongue. You’re gonna destroy me, and I’ll thank you for it. ”

“Stop,” she hisses, but it’s weak, crumbling, her breath a stuttering mess as her eyes flare with a wild, trapped heat.

Her shirt rides up then, baring her stomach, and when I touch her exposed skin, she falters, arching her back into me with a choked moan, her body screaming yes when her mouth won’t.

Her skin is creamy and soft and as I trail my fingers along the smooth expanse down to her belly button, I feel myself harden to the point of pain, my cock leaking against my zipper.

I cup her breasts through her bra and squeeze, roughly and possessively, her flesh spilling over my hands, her nipples stiffening instantly.

“Jesus,” she breathes, trembling, her resolve shattering, a ragged whimper tearing from her throat as her thighs clamp around me, needy and desperate. “Fuck…”

“Not him. Just me.”

I feel her nipples as they harden under my thumbs and twirl them, pinching hard until she cries out, her head snapping back, sweat beading on her neck.

It takes all of my willpower not to rip her shirt open, bend down, and suck those perfect tits until she’s sobbing my name, begging me for more.

I am a freaking mess in front of her, a beast unraveling, my cock throbbing with the need to bury itself inside her.

But it’s her taste I crave most, a hunger so deep it’s eating me alive.

“Selene,” I groan, my voice a broken, guttural plea as I drop to my knees, a wrecked man at her altar, hands clawing at her skirt like a junkie for his fix.

“I want to go down on you, baby. Please, this is me on my knees begging for a taste between your legs. I’m fucking starving for your pussy, Selene, let me bury my face in it.

” My fingers rip at her skirt, almost tearing the zipper wide, and I push it up, exposing her drenched panties.

I press my face into her, sniffing the hot, musky scent of her slick arousal.

But I don’t go further. I won’t. Not until she says those words I want to hear.

“Fuck, you’re so wet, dripping for me. I can smell how bad you need this. Let me lick your juices, baby, please, it’s been so long, I can’t even think straight when you’re nearby. Please. Let me suck that clit until you’re gushing down my throat.”

She squirms, her hands shoving at my head, but her hips jerk forward, grinding against my nose, her breath coming in sharp, frantic gasps, her cunt pulsing with heat so close to my mouth. “Sandro, stop—”

“No, I can’t, I fucking won’t,” I moan, my lips grazing her soaked folds, tongue sticking out to lap at the edge of her panties, tasting her through the fabric, a tease that makes me whimper like a dog.

“You’re killing me, Selene. I’ll die if I don’t get my mouth on you.

Let me eat you out, please, I’ll tongue-fuck you so deep you’ll forget everything but me.

I’ll make you come so hard you’ll beg me to keep going, fiancé or not, I don’t give a shit, just let me taste you.

” My hands wrench her thighs wider, nails digging into her flesh, and I nuzzle closer, my breath hot against her slit, lips brushing her clit as I growl, “Look at this pretty pussy, weeping for me. I’m gonna devour it, baby, gonna lick you so good until you’re screaming my name. ”

If I don’t stop this now, I’m going to fuck her right here, on this table, with her fiance outside, and I won’t care who hears her scream. But her words, those fragile, fractured words, chain me, barely.

“Please, Sandro, don’t make me do this…” she whispers, her voice a shattered sob, laced with terror and a trembling, undeniable ache, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling hard but arching into me all the same, her body a war of want and resistance.

Her plea cuts through the haze, a blade of clarity in my fevered spiral, and I freeze, mouth hovering over her dripping core, spit pooling on my tongue, my whole body shaking with the effort to stop.

For a tortured second, I stay there, nose pressed to her heat, lips a whisper from claiming her.

Then I wrench myself back, releasing her thighs, staggering to my feet, hands trembling as I smear her scent across my face, my chest heaving like I’ve run a marathon.

She collapses against the table, pulling her skirt down with shaking fingers, her face flushed, eyes wet and wild with a mix of shame and unspent lust.

I can see the cracks as they form in the push and pull of our relationship, if I can even call it that. She’s filled with desire, the kind that I feel for her, a filthy, consuming rot that mirrors my own. Everything that she says is just fuel on the fire.

“Selene. I—”

“You already got the gallery like you wanted. Don’t come back here again, please.

If you think I’m still the naive girl you left, then you’ve got it all wrong,” she says, her voice cold, eyes narrowing as she straightens, wiping her flushed face like she’s scrubbing me off her skin.

“I’m not your toy anymore, Sandro. You don’t get to slink back in here, drooling like some rabid dog, thinking I’ll just roll over for you.

I’m done, done with your games, your sick obsession.

You’re nothing to me now, just a pathetic mistake I scraped off my shoe years ago. ”

Her words land like a blade to the ribs, so deep, precise, and meant to wound.

I feel each one cutting through something I barely admit exists.

I force myself to meet her eyes, to hold them so she can’t twist my meaning, but the effort costs me.

My voice drops, meant to be a warning, a dark promise, but there’s a fracture now, a raw edge she’s pried open, exposing something I’ve spent years burying.

“Listen to me, princess. The longer you make me wait, the rougher it’s going to be when I finally take you.

I was minutes away from bending you over this table, ripping those panties off, and fucking you so deep you’d be dripping with me, begging for more like the desperate little slut you are, and we both know it.

” I stop, my throat tightening, the sting of her rejection burrowing under my skin.

My mask slips, the controlled dominance unraveling, my voice turning hoarse.

“You can’t just cut me out like I’m nothing.

I’m fucking desperate for you, don’t you see it?

You’re in my bones, and I can’t carve you out.

Tell me you feel it too. Even a little. Please. ”

She stares at me, her lip curling in disgust. “Feel it? All I feel is pity for the sad, broken man who can’t let go. Go home, Alessandro. Crawl back to whatever hole you came from and leave me the hell alone.”

Her venom seeps in, and I flinch, my bravado crumbling, hands balling into fists to hide the shake. I’m laid bare, a wounded animal, exposing the soft, rotting core I’ve buried under threats and lust.

I have a choice now: to break her through desire or through fear. It’s not a hard decision but it takes me a while to come to a conclusion, the anticipation making my blood sing.

I’m going to do both.