Page 68 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

sixty-three

Soren

I won’t cry for him. I won’t plead with him to stop. I’m too angry— too betrayed.

And you did this to yourself.

Signing that contract had been so very stupid, given that I knew the man who’d presented it to me was wicked.

I read the words he’d printed and signed my name below them.

I’d guaranteed to satisfy all reasonable work-related requests.

I’m pretty sure there isn’t a judge in the world that would uphold a contract for sex-slavery, and though I know that’s not what I agreed to, I know that he’s banking on me not to fight it.

After all, I’m the woman who killed her husband.

I’m the one that carved him up and then sliced my own wrists in the bathtub, who did it again days later wearing my wedding dress.

I’m the one who got away with murder, and Declan Evers is an upstanding, model citizen…

as far as the rest of the world is concerned.

I won’t give him the satisfaction of my tears, but I also won’t give him the satisfaction of being a good little slut who will readily spread her legs for him.

My hands are still bound above my head, but as he shifts his weight on my stomach, squeezing the air out of my lungs, it leaves my legs free to try and dislodge him.

But in terms of our size difference, I am a kitten and he is a lion.

A smirk ripples across his face as he doesn’t bother trying to hide his amusement at my pathetic attempt to sway him off of me.

He leans forward, runs his tongue slowly up my neck to the soft spot behind my ear.

And then his teeth close over my earlobe, sending pain and pleasure shooting through me in disgusting tandem.

The sound that fills the air starts as a scream—I feel it bubble in the lungs that can’t get in a good breath. By the time I clamp my lips shut, desperate to deny it, it almost sounds like a moan.

I can practically feel his lips move as he smirks against my ear. “Purr for me, kitten.”

The whisper is seductive—I don’t know if he’s doing that intentionally or if that’s just how it is, but it loosens something deep inside of me. Another sound escapes me, though I’m inclined to believe it’s just the last of my air being forced out of my body as he leans further into me.

I jump to get out from under his touch, which feels feverish on my hips. When my back is pressed to the headboard, he grabs the strap again and lifts. There’s a moment where my wrists feel like they’ll be severed all at once, and then the pressure eases.

For one quick moment, I think he freed me, but then I hear the tiny metallic sound of it closing again before the thick belt binds me tighter to a bedpost.

The terror that was swirling in me before is now threatening to turn my world upside down as I realize I’m completely helpless.

I’ve felt this way in his presence before when he’s had me backed against a wall, cornered between his desk, pressed against a mattress.

But I’ve never felt this vulnerable, this open for him…

until his fingers skate against my hips, his nails digging gently into my skin as he hooks the waistband of my panties and peels them away from my skin.

With him straddling me, his knees on either side of my legs, Declan pushes my thighs apart easily, considering it’s my last line of defense and he tugs it out from under me in a single movement before making a show of sliding the fabric down my legs.

I fight to snap them closed, but he moves his knees between my thighs, spreading me wide open for him.

My cheeks burn as he curls them in his fist and raises my lacy panties to his face, inhaling the scent of my arousal.

I already knew I was wet for him—have been since he pushed me against the wall on the patio—but I could feel just how much the evidence was there as the cool air left in the wake of their removal hit me. And now he knows too.

“Fuck, Ren.” He groans, tossing my panties to the side and gripping the top of my thighs, dangerously close to the space where I both dread him going and simultaneously want him to lavish his attention upon. “You’re going to make me lose control.”

I snort, grateful to have something to cover my abject lack of dignity. “You’re telling me this is you ‘in control’ ?”

A wicked smile curves his lips, a dark lock of hair falling in his electric eyes; He’s dangerously sexy, but something about the way he looks at me with that expression makes me burn for him.

“You haven’t seen me lose control yet, kitten. You’ll know when I do.”

Promise or threat, I feel myself clench in anticipation of his words… or maybe just the way his attention turns to my pussy, bared to him like a sacrifice.

“So many things I want to do to you…” He murmurs, pressing his thumb against my clit with just enough pressure to make me suck in a sharp breath. He continues, unbothered as he slides it down my seam and then dips inside, where I’m still slick and ready for him.

He pushed me to the edge earlier; I had to fight to maintain a sense of dignity, even though if I’m honest, the thought of getting caught may have only added fuel to the fire of my arousal.

“You’re so tight for a whore, Ren.” His voice is condescending, but I don’t have a chance to be angry about it because he trades his thumb for two fingers and builds a rhythm in me— slow stroke in, even slower stroke back.

His thumb returns to the swollen space between my thighs, coating it with the thick moisture from inside of me, pulling some up to rub over the gloriously needy bundle of nerves tucked between my thighs.

Pleasure like electricity shoots through me as he moves in slow circles and fast strokes. The heat that it douses me in goes from contented to blazing in seconds, heightened by the maelstrom of emotions coursing through me and the thoughts in my head.

This is wrong, and yet it feels so right. It’s been so long.

Even before Vin died, our sex life left something to be desired. Maybe it was the trying to conceive, but he got weird— started treating sex like a chore, started acting scared to touch me, uninterested, or flat out turned off.

Now I know I’m not the only one he was touching, and maybe I didn’t do it for him because I couldn’t fulfill his fantasies.

He was my husband, and he never gave me the chance.

But Declan is touching on something in me that’s been starving for far too long, and now I’m about to come undone embarrassingly quickly.

I groan in frustration, feeling betrayed by my body for enjoying the touch of another man and betrayed by my brain for enjoying it under such circumstances, and betrayed by Declan for making me want to trust him.

And betrayed isn’t even a strong enough word for what Vin did.

“You’re fighting so hard not to let go.” Declan’s words whisper against my thigh, and I think for a moment that he’s going to press his lips to the skin there.

Instead, he lets his fingers slip out of me.

The loss makes me clench like I can will him back, but he increases his rhythm on my clit, working me into a frenzy.

I can feel how close I am—he’s taken me further than last time, pushing my toes over the ledge. The only question now is whether he’ll pull me back or let me freefall into the sensation.

Shame washes over me, fast and heavy, just slightly louder than the voice in the back of my head whispering to let go. I twist sharply, suddenly wishing I had use of my hands if only to pull a pillow over my face.

“You can’t escape me, Ren.” Declan chuckles. It’s a deep and throaty sound, strained and hungry. He’s enjoying himself, whether because he is loving the control he’s got over me or because he’s turned on by watching me lose myself.

Escape isn’t what I want. I just want to hide, to keep him from seeing me in this most vulnerable of moments.

He seizes my ankle with his free hand, leveling me so that he can see all of me.

He doesn’t watch what he’s doing; he watches me, his eyes magnetized to my face as I try to stave off the impending explosion.

When it becomes clear he won’t look away, I do, slamming my eyes shut and throwing all of my rapidly-waning energy into fighting it.

“Come for me, kitten. I know you want to.”

I think I’m sweating, and my head feels buzzy with how hard I’ve been holding my breath in fruitless attempts to stave it off.

But I can’t fight it anymore. He knows it, too.

His fingers twist over my clit, hard enough to pull a scream from me, gentle enough to send stars skittering across the insides of my eyelids as my entire body convulses.

I’m doused in kerosene, and the inferno comes on quick.

Heat contracts in my core a second before it explodes outward, rolling over me so fast that it steals my breath, the scream that started in the back of my throat dying a silent death as the pleasure is too fucking much.

It’s brutal, beautiful, relentless. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt, and I fight it.

I hate it as much as I don’t.

Everything in me is exhausted when the orgasm wanes. My toes uncurl, my nails stop biting into my own palms, and I take in my first real breath in what feels like forever.

I don’t find the courage to open my eyes until Declan commands it of me. “Look at me, Ren.”

I don’t want to, but it’s like my body has switched allegiances, choosing to respond to the person who brings it pleasure unlike anything I’ve ever known.

The world is blurry when my eyelids push open; I assume it’s the force with which I was squeezing them shut, but then I feel the moisture on my cheek and realize what it is.

I’m crying.