Page 16 of Intrigue
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 mewhimper 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, awounded 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.
Chapter 6
Selene
The coffee in my cup has gone cold, but I keep stirring it anyway, watching the swirl of cream dissolve into nothing. Across from me, Cassian shifts in his seat, his fingers drumming against the wooden table. He’s been quiet too long, and I know something is wrong before he even speaks.
“The lease fell through,” he finally says, voice tight. “I don’t know how—”
My stomach drops. The spoon slips from my fingers, clattering against the saucer. My mind can’t stop thinking about the things Sandro did to me in the gallery. His mouth against my skin, his hands pinning me down, his words sinking into me like a promise and a curse. God, I almost broke.
How can I still want him after everything?
Then Cassian speaks again, and my heart clenches.
“Apparently, Sandro offered the landlord a better deal,” he continues. “The gallery is his now.”
Of course it is.
Cassian looks at me like he’s waiting for me to make sense of it, to explain why the man who shouldn’t have any part in our lives keeps sinking his claws deeper. But I don’t have an answer he’ll want to hear. Because I know exactly why Sandro did this. He’s proving a point.
Cassian shakes his head. “I don’t understand. We had a contract. This was supposed to be—”
“Our future,” I finish softly.
I should feel anger on his behalf, rage that Sandro keeps taking what isn’t his. Instead, all I feel is something tangledand ugly inside me, because I know this isn’t about Cassian. It’s about me.
It’s about the way my body still remembers Sandro’s touch before my mind can tell it to forget. It’s about the way my breathing turns shallow when he’s near.