Page 12 of Intrigue
He lets me go and licks the wine that has trickled down his lips suggestively, a menacing smile curving at the edge like he knows what he just did has my mind spiraling.
Like he knows that no matter how much I despise him, my body remembers. It remembers the heat of his skin, the way his hands once left marks I never wanted to fade. It remembers that once upon a time, I would have licked that drop of wine from his lips myself.
His eyes go dark as he regards me under heavy lashes, voice a growl.
“You think the ring on your finger means anything? You think that’s going to stop me or change anything? Cassian might have his ring on your finger, but you’re still mine, always fucking mine. Your entire body knows it. And if I have to put Cassian in the ground to remind you, so be it.”
I push at him again, but he’s too close, too solid, and my hands linger on his chest as he refuses to break his grip.
“You’re disgusting,” I spit, but my body’s trembling, sold out by the heat he’s stoking. He grabs my wrists, pulls me flush against him, and I feel every hard inch of him pressing into me, daring me to break.
“Disgusting?” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear, voice dripping with filth. “Pot calling kettle black. You’re soaked for it, aren’t you? Hating me so bad it’s got you dripping down your thighs. Go ahead, hit me again, make it hurt, baby. I know you like it rough.”
I wrench free, panting, but I can’t step back—don’t want to—and the air between us is thick with rot and lust, pulling us both down into the muck.
Ugh, he’s so infuriating. I hate him so much it feels hard to breathe sometimes, and even now, when he says this, I’m overpowered by the hate, a choking, living thing drawing up in my throat.
“Get off your high horse, Sandro,” I quip, holding his stern gaze. “I came here to find you and tell you to stay off my back. I could never be yours, and Cassian is a better man than you’ll ever be.”
Sandro drags one foot forward, anger flashing across his handsome features, a storm breaking over that perfect, loathsome face, but I put a hand up to stop him, my nails itching to make him bloody. “Touch me again and I’m gonna cut you.”
“Cut me?” he asks, mockingly. He brings out a dagger from his belt behind him and snaps it out of the holder. The blade glistens in the dark, even as he holds it between us, taunting me. “Try it, princess. I’d like that, bleed me out, see if I don’t make you drink it.”
“Fuck you.”
He throws the dagger on the floor and doesn’t make a move to pick it up, daring me with that smug, filthy smirk. I do. I reach down, grab it, and point it at him.
“You’re not the one holding all the cards now, you see? It’s pathetic what you’ve turned out to be, isn’t it?”
Sandro rushes at me suddenly. One moment I have the dagger waving in front of me, and the next, his hands are in my hair and on my cheeks, dragging me into him, his body pressed firmly against me, breaths coming in ragged, desperate gasps that burn against my skin.
“Tell me how pathetic I am,” he mutters, voice rough and unhinged, his lips grazing my jaw. “I’m here in front of you now, Selene, so tell me or cut me, but know this…I’m not letting Cassian take you from me. I’ll gut him first, and fuck you raw right beside his cooling body.”
“Get off me, Sandro,” I snarl, shoving at him, but it’s useless.
His hands drop to my waist and he pulls me into him, hard, possessive. Goosebumps ride up my arm when I feel something harden in his pants, his erection pressing into me until all I can think about is how thick and insistent it is, branding me through the fabric.
Sandro guides my hand to his length and rubs himself through his pants, groaning like the animal he is.
“See what you do to me? My body still fires up for you. It still wants you badly, craves you like a fucking drug. Tell me you don’t feel it too, you lying little slut.”
I squeeze his cock gently, tentatively, knowing I shouldn’t be doing it but wanting to anyway, needing to feel him pulse under my grip. He groans when I rub him faster, breathing hot and wet against my neck, his tongue sticking out to taste me.
I stop, mutter, “No…” but it’s weak, a plea drowned in want.
He shakes his head and looks at me, and I see the darkness in his eyes, a void that swallows me whole.
“Stop fighting this, Selene. You can’t run from this sweet ecstasy, can’t run from me fucking owning you.”
I push at his hard chest even as heat begins to pool at my core, a traitor’s flood. I have to grind my thighs together to settle the tingles, but I feel it as it happens: my body still wants him, hungers for him, and I can’t stop it, can’t kill the sick pulse of it. “You’re not gonna get away with this, Sandro…”
“You still call me Sandro,” he growls, triumphant, like it’s proof I’m his.
He slips a hand under my dress to press a finger against the slit in my panties, finding me soaked, betrayed by my own flesh. He hisses a breath, victorious. “You’re fucking wet for me…you want me to fuck you up against this tree, don’t you? You’re dripping, such a needy little whore for me, aren’t you?”
He’s right. He’s so right. But I can’t play into his arms like this, not after fighting hard to forget about him, to scrub him from my bones.
“Let me go,” I snap, but it’s half a whimper, my resolve cracking.