Page 66 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

“I’ll stay in Costa Rica as a courtesy while you search for them, but I can’t turn it off and on if we don’t want them to get suspicious. Call me before you guys act.”

Dimitri nods again, passing a set of keys to Declan.

“You’re welcome to stay in the guest house. Elaine will be happy to have the company.”

“No,” Elaine says, drawing everyone’s attention. I practically forgot she was there, standing on the edge of the patio and looking like she refused to take a breath ‘til the conversation was done. Now that it is, she’s made herself known.

“No?”

“I’m coming.” She says, crossing her arms. “I’m not staying here while you guys run off. I can’t stay here alone.”

My head feels like it’s spinning. “I… we already have a suite.”

“You can’t come.” Dimitri scoffs. “You’ll slow us down.”

“I can stay on the plane, then, but you’re not leaving me here. When you find them, they’re going to need me.”

Declan looks between them, and then his eyes slide over me.

“We’ll stay. It will help to have access to Boudreaux’s computer so that I can be sure the proxy I set up is in place from an outside source.”

Their feud abandoned, neither Dimitri or the housekeeper look back to tell me goodbye. They disappear into the house, and Declan shrugs. “I’m tired, and don’t feel like driving to the hotel.”

I blink at him. “So, we’re just going to stay in a stranger’s house?”

“Think of it as a B&B.” His mouth tips into a grin. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

“No thanks.” I say immediately, standing to go… anywhere. I don’t exactly want to go out to the guest house alone, but I also don’t want to be near Declan.

Now that the intensity of the last ten minutes has mellowed, the hurt and sickness is rushing back, happy to pull me into its dark embrace.

“No wasn’t an option, kitten.”

“Kitten?” I laugh coldly, using my anger to block the incessant fluttering of my heartbeat as he steps nearer to me.

“Kitten,” he confirms.

With one powerful stride, he eliminates all of the space between us, driving me against the concrete wall. His fingers drum against my neck, coming to a rest in the hollow space between my collarbones. His other hand grips my hip, which burns hot under his touch.

“Unless you prefer it when I call you my good little whore?”

The rage in my belly wars with the feeling underneath it—the one that has me clenching and loosening and almost believing that I do like him calling me degrading names.

“ Fuck you .”

I bite the words off slow and sharp, deliberately leaving no room for him to doubt my anger. But my anger doesn’t inspire his. He only laughs at me.

“So, no dinner, then?”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

It’s a bold lie, when his touch on me makes me feel high and his fingers are close to one of the spots I desperately do want him.

It’s probably clear to anybody who can hear my heartbeat crashing against my ribs or see the rise and fall of my chest that I want him. But Declan doesn’t want me. He wants to ruin me. He wants to torture me, to humiliate me over and over again.

I think back to him dumping me off his lap on the jet, pressing me into the bed but denying me his touch. I think back to the photos he left up for me to see that not only was my husband unfaithful to me, he may have been even more of a monster than the one in front of me.

“That’s your problem.” He laughs, wedging his shoe between my feet and forcing my legs apart. I can’t take my gaze off of his even as he presses the pad of his thumb against my throat, letting the fingers on his other hand trail up my thighs.

Even through the thick fabric of my leggings, his touch makes me shudder. My eyes flutter closed while I try to compose myself, try to get my shit together and do something other than think about how much I want his hand to inch higher.

“No.” He chides. “Open your eyes, Ren. Let me see how much you hate me.”

My body seems almost hard-wired to respond to him—I oblige him despite the fact that my brain is telling me to do the opposite of anything he demands. When I do, his eyes are gleaming with approval, a wolfish look of hunger in them. He’s a predator, making a five-course meal out of his prey.

“What’s my problem?” I gasp, because I need to say something and I’m sure as fuck not about to tell him to keep doing what he’s doing, no matter how great the thrill is in me as his hand skates higher, curving around to cup my ass.

I keep my eyes open, but my head tips back as he squeezes one cheek, and I fight to keep my breathing steady.

“Your problem,” Declan’s lips hover over my skin, from where his fingers rest on my neck all the way up to my ear. If I move even a fraction of an inch, they’d be pressing against my skin. “Is that you think you’re in control.”

I’m about to tell him I am just to spite him, even though I am clearly not, but his fingers dip below the waistband of my pants and suddenly I’m happy to admit he’s in control. He slides his palm against me, flattening his hand so that his fingers slip easily lower, lower, until…

He slips inside of me, proving that I’ve been lying to both of us about how I don’t want him, and slides deep until my stomach contracts with the force of the breath I suck in.

Fuck.

I’m on the verge of insanity, hating how much I love the feel of him between my thighs.

He’s slow, exploring what it feels like to be inside me, taking his time with his strokes and building a need that threatens to consume us both.

I want this as much as I don’t want it. I don’t even know if Dimitri and Elaine are gone. This is a stranger’s house… there could be cameras. I push against his hand as he glides out, but it’s too half-hearted to stop him.

“What’s the matter, kitten?”

“Stop.” I rasp. It’s all I can say without cracking, and even that, I barely manage to get out. There’s more I’d say if I could control my voice—this is wrong, someone could see us, we’re guests here. But none of that would matter to him, just like my feeble protest doesn’t matter to him.

He slides in deeper, drawing a gasp of surprise from me, and I drop my hand from his arm, abandoning the resistance I was trying to cling to.

When he slides out of me this time and slips back in, I feel noticeably fuller.

He’s added another finger, and he uses them to curl into me until I’m gasping.

My legs feel weak, and instinct has me rocking on the tips of my toes, trying to make more room for him.

The pressure is a curious combination of pleasure and discomfort. It feels like he’s about to push his hand through me from the inside out, but it’s sending hot ripples of pleasure over my skin as he strokes a place I never knew existed.

I groan as the energy it took to try and arch away from him depletes me and I fall deeper onto his palm.

“Such a good whore.” He whispers. I can hear the mockery in it even without opening my eyes to see that sinister little smirk. “You like this, don’t you? Telling yourself that you don’t want me. Telling yourself that this pussy isn’t weeping for me right now.”

I bite my lip, refusing to say anything in response to that.

Of course, Declan doesn’t like that. He hits that place deep inside me, ripping a moan out of my throat that dies in frustration as he retreats.

“Tell me you want this. Tell me what a whore you are for me, Soren Palmer.”

He thrusts again and I think I’m going to crumple before him.

I open my mouth, unsure how I’m supposed to get my tongue to move when everything inside of me is trembling.

I’ve given myself a few orgasms before, and I think I may have had a few with Vin, but this feels like the prelude to something catastrophic.

And I want it.

I need it.

“Declan,”

It’s all I can manage. His name sounds like a prayer on my tongue… a plea to a cruel God for relief.

“Fuck, Kitten.” He growls, thrusting his hand once more. “Was that so hard?”

And then he stops, pulling out of me all at once. The elastic on my pants snaps as he retreats, an audible reminder of the loss.

My eyes fly open in time to see the strangled look of hunger on his face before it morphs into a wicked grin. I don’t know why he stopped, especially given that he looks pained to do so.

But the realization hits me when he wraps his arms around my waist and hoists me over his shoulder.

It’s graceless, demeaning, and primal. But I understand all at once where he’s taking me and why.

He didn’t finish because I just gave him the green light .

After all my denial and all his attempts to get me to beg him, to moan his name, I just surrendered after a few minutes of being fucked by his fingers.

Now he’s going to take everything that I’m willing to give him… and maybe more than I’m willing to part with.