Page 40 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

Everything had moved in an untraceable blur. One minute, I was reaching forward for the bottle of whiskey, and the next, I had been plucked off the ground like a flower and hauled deep into Dominic’s viperous den. The chain leading from his wrist to the wall had wrapped around my neck so quickly, I hadn’t even seen it happen.

My hands shot out, slamming into his chest to push myself off of him, but his hold on me was iron-clad. Bracing his back against the concrete wall, he dragged me onto his lap, tugging me forward by my chained neck until we were nose to nose.

“Well, hello there, angel.”

The smell of his whiskey flavored breath curled around me like a forgotten promise.

I crashed my palms into his chest again, trying to dislodge myself from his arms, but it only made him tighten the chain around my neck, snuffing out my air supply.

My panicked eyes grew wild as I slapped and clawed at his hands.

“Are you going to behave yourself?”

he asked, his head tilting to the side appreciatively, as though he wanted to see me chained up like this from every angle possible.

I nodded frantically, tapping against his hands so that he would loosen the chain.

The moment felt as though it had gone on forever, but a second later, he relaxed the pull he had on the chain, giving me just enough space to fill my lungs again. I immediately broke out into a coughing fit as my heart jumped up from my chest and started pounding somewhere between my ringing ears.

“Better?”

he asked, his eyes as dark as the pitch night sky.

“Let me go,”

I choked out hoarsely, feeling that familiar, homely darkness swelling in the pit of my stomach. “You don’t want to do this,” I warned, knowing I could call on my magic and stop this before it had a chance to get started, but I really didn’t want to have to do that—to follow through with what I was going to have to do to him afterward.

Not after all the progress we’d made.

“Dominic…please.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he just watched me intently, his eyes dancing across my face as though he was enjoying whatever it was he was seeing there. His gaze dipped to my neck as he cocked his head the other way, searching the curves and edges of my neck for something. But for what? A calmness washed over me and suddenly, I was more curious as to what he was doing than afraid of him.

“What are you—”

“No markings,”

he noted, a boyish smile tugging at his lips, making them seem far less deadly than they were. His gaze crawled back up to meet mine. “Why is that?”

Confused by his question, I tried to shake my head but stopped as the metal chaffed against my skin.

His gaze dropped to my hand still clutching his. I could see him scouring my wrist for any signs of bite marks. Coming up empty, he pulled his brows together and looked back at me.

“Where does he bite you?”

he asked coolly.

I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. “My wrists, mostly.”

He glanced at my forearm again and then at the other one.

“I use a healing spell afterward.”

“Interesting,”

he said softly, calmly, as though this were a completely normal conversation—as though we weren’t twisted together in a basement prison cell with the very chains I’d used to keep him captive around my own neck.

“Why is that interesting?”

I choked out, despite myself and my predicament.

“You never used a healing spell with me.”

His gaze shifted to my cheeks, remarking the color that had sprung up there. Lifting his free hand to my face, he paused, as though waiting to see if I would flinch away from his touch, and then dragged the back of his knuckles against my cheek. It took every bit of resilience I had not to surrender to how good it felt—not to close my eyes and sink all the way into it. “Did you like being marked by me?”

I bit down hard on my bottom lip, drawing blood between my teeth as memories of those private moments with him swarmed me, muddling my brain and making it hard for me to think straight. We both already knew the answer to that question, though I refused to confirm it out loud.

“Dominic…let me go,”

I said again, my voice shaking, but not because I was afraid of him or the chain he still had twisted around my neck like a noose. My fear of that had already diminished into nothing. It was the other things surfacing in me that made me afraid. It was the fact that my curiosity had morphed into something far more dangerous: intrigue.

“Is that what you really want?”

he asked as though he could sense all of the things that were clamoring just beneath the thin surface of my skin. All of the things I was longing for.

His thumb grazed against my bottom lip, wiping at the blood that had pooled there. Dangerous shadows flickered like flames behind his eyes as he brought his thumb to his mouth and tasted it.

My thighs clenched together, pressing into his hips without my consent as I felt him twitch between my legs. My traitorous body responded, and I wholly blamed the alcohol for chipping away at my inhibitions, for demolishing my right frame of mind. But I mostly blamed the way he was looking at me. The way his eyes flared like they used to right before he would devour me in the most delicious way possible.

His eyes dropped to my mouth again, looking at my lips like he had done before. Like he was trying to figure out what he wanted to do with them. It was making my head swim with confusion, and fog, and desire.

Desire for him to kiss me.

To feel his lips on me again.

To consume me the way only he knew how.

“Angel…”

His low, honeyed voice sent a quiver through my stomach.

Was he warning me or beckoning me? And did I even care?

My body leaned forward by its own volition as all semblance of logic and restraint left me. Despite his hold on the chain around my neck, he allowed me the space to move freely, not moving an inch except to clench his jaw when I stopped less than a fingerbreadth from his mouth.

I’d only meant to test our proximity, to search his eyes for any sign of recognition, but found myself inhaling a lungful of his sweet chocolatey scent instead. I found myself crumbling. Weakening. Remembering. Before I knew what I was doing, before I could think it all the way through to the end, I closed the gap and kissed him.

A slow, rumbling noise sounded from deep in his chest, vibrating against my body as I sealed his mouth with my own. He didn’t respond at first and I almost expected him to buck me off and say something cruel to me, to laugh in my face for stumbling into his honeypot again, but nothing like that happened.

In fact, nothing at all happened.

He hadn’t kissed me back.

Embarrassment crept up into my face as I moved to pull away, but he stopped me from retreating and held me there, keeping my lips brushed up against his.

And then he answered, his lips moving tentatively as though he were kissing me for the first time, as though he wasn’t sure whether he even liked it or not. I slipped my tongue between his lips and tasted him, heat unfurling inside me as something primal and needy rose from my center to greet him.

He yanked me back by the chain, breaking off the kiss.

“Leave,”

he snarled and then hastily unwrapped the chain from around my neck, glaring at me as though he couldn’t stand to be this close to me for a second longer.

What the hell just happened?

I shifted on his lap, free to get up and make a run for it. Free to scramble back to my feet and dive to the safer side of the line. And yet, I didn’t move from him. My hand drifted to my neck, rubbing against the bruised skin as I hunted his eyes for meaning. His cuffed hands were splayed against the concrete on either side of himself and his eyes were shuttered.

“Are you going to get off me or do I have to remove you myself?”

he asked, his voice strained as though he were working hard to temper his voice.

My confusion returned and the fuzziness in my mind from the whiskey wasn’t making it any easier to decipher what was going on. All I had were my instincts—my need—so I went with that, hanging onto the glimmer of hope that he hadn’t tried to hurt me yet. I wasn’t sure why that was, but it had to mean something, didn’t it?

“Feed from me.”

“What?”

The word ripped out of him on a snarl.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I asked and then felt him shift beneath me. I could feel that he was still turned on and fully responsive in that way, however, his words and eyes were saying something completely different. Unsure which part of him was singing the truth, I went with the one that benefited me most. “Do it. I want you to.”

“Stupid, stupid girl.”

His fangs snapped down, making my body shudder, but he still hadn’t moved an inch other than to run his tongue over his teeth. His hands were still splayed against the floor as though he had no plans on using them.

What was he waiting for? Why was he holding back?

I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to make sense of his odd behavior and his eyes immediately dropped to my mouth as another growl reverberated from his chest. His gaze was still cold and hard, but I could all but feel the lust radiating off of him. I pushed forward and kissed him again, softer this time as I tested out my theory and then pulled back to see his reaction.

He hissed out a breath and I knew.

Something was happening inside him; a war was being waged behind the steely fa?ade of his eyes. I licked his taste from my lips and made a soft noise at the back of my throat, and that was all that was needed to completely break him.

His chained hands shot up without warning, fingers raking into my hair as he jerked me forward and crashed my mouth against his. A solar flare of heat exploded in my belly as he pushed my lips apart and buried his tongue in my mouth as though desperate for another taste of me. My thighs grinded against him in response, eager for friction, eager for more, as I moaned into his mouth with need.

Untangling his hands from my hair, he lowered them to my hips, gripping tightly as he drove me back against his thighs, giving me just enough room to slip my hand between us and unbutton his pants. To remove the remaining barriers between us. And I couldn’t do it fast enough.

My heart strummed in my chest as he pulled me back toward his chest, lifting me and then carefully setting me back down onto him. Even though my body had already been more than ready for him, I still felt that familiar, delicious stretching sensation as I settled myself around him. Our eyes connected for a brief, torturous moment as I tried to peer into his dark eyes, into his soul, diving headfirst into the search of the man I knew and loved. And then we were moving again, my hips rolling in his lap in slow and deliberate movements as his own hips pushed up to meet mine.

His hand came up again, clutching my jaw as he pulled my mouth back down to his, our bodies still moving in tandem, driving against each other as we met each other’s hungry thrust, tit for tat. My knees scraped against the concrete floor as I grinded against him harder, tearing at my flesh the way I wanted him to tear into me.

My hands clasped around his neck as he parted my lips with his and invaded my mouth with fervor, deepening the kiss into something dirty and raw and frenzied. It was as though he couldn’t get enough of me, as though he needed to bury himself inside every inch of me. And I welcomed him with open arms, because I needed that too.

“Feed from me,”

I moaned against his mouth, my hips still rolling against him with greed.

“Are you sure about that, angel?”

His voice was a war-torn whisper that made me clench harder around him.

“I’m sure.”

I was so fucking sure. My body needed more. Needed him. Needed all of him and at the same time.

Heat pooled low in my belly at the sound of his fangs descending against my lips. His fingers dove into my hair and then fisted at the nape of my neck, using his grip to jerk my head back from his own. Coal black eyes liquified as they danced over my face and then lowered, narrowing in on the tiny beads of sweat trickling down my neck.

His other hand came up and ripped my shirt wide open, exposing the see-through lace bra I was wearing and the mounds it was meant to cover.

A thunderous growl sounded from inside his chest as he tipped forward and ran the entirety of his tongue along the length of my neck, lapping at my skin as though priming me. As though preparing me.

My body pulsed and warmed, already so close I could almost combust. And yet, I still needed to be closer. To be molded with him in a way that would have you think we could never be untwined again. And then, as if sensing my need, he demolished the remaining space between us.

It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming out his name as he bit down into my neck and sucked down hard, his hand coming down over my bra as he kneaded his palm against my breast. Every nerve ending in my body blitzed to life as a lightning storm of desire erupted inside me, coursing through my veins, down my limbs, between my legs, hitting every part of me at the same time. All of my pleasure sensors fired off at the same time, making it impossible for me to distinguish one hit from the other.

Time ceased to exist altogether and all I could feel was the ecstasy he was blessing my body with.

The world spun gloriously around me and then into me and through me. My fingernails dug even deeper into his shoulders, bracing myself as the heat in my core all but caught fire.

And then I was sailing, drifting so fast and high above the world below me that I was sure I had orbited into another plane of existence all together. My head arched back as defeated cries of gratification spilled from my lips, giving way to an orgasm that tore into me like a roaring avalanche.

I rode the pulsing waves of fire like a champ, greedily devouring every last tremble and shockwave I could manage until only an ember of it remained. But Dominic wasn’t done with me. He was still drinking from me. Still rocking into me. Still palming my breast like it was the means to his salvation.

And just like that, my fire rekindled, growing fiercely and wildly like an uncontrollable forest fire that had no end. And all I could do was run fearlessly through the woods with it, hoping and praying against all odds that it wouldn’t incinerate every last bit of me when I was done.