Page 70 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

sixty-five

Declan

“Look at you,” I murmur, running my eyes over her naked body. She’s splayed open for me, a beautiful disaster that exists only for me. “You don’t even know how to let yourself feel .” I shake my head. “Pain, pleasure… you fight it all the same.”

“Declan,” she moans, “Please.”

I don’t know what she’s pleading for. I bet she doesn’t know either. She’s running on autopilot the way she has for the last year, and I need her to take the reigns again.

It’s time she stops fighting for control over useless things.

“Moaning for me isn’t enough, kitten.” I tell her, caressing the side of her face from the top of her brow to her delicate throat that I squeeze between my fingers. “I want to hear you scream my name. But until you do, I’ll settle for you choking it out around my dick.”

Soren’s lip trembles a moment as she considers my words, and then she sets her jaw in defiance. It’s cute… so petulant .

I’d give this woman the fucking world, but she hasn’t figured that out yet. Once she learns to use it to her advantage, I don’t know what I’m going to do with her.

I swipe my thumb along her chin, just below her lips which are full and pouty and positively begging to be put to use.

“I’m curious,” I tell her, sweeping her hair over her shoulder with my other hand and wrapping it around my fist, using the leverage to bring her closer to me. “Have you always been this way?”

Her eyes ask the questions she’s too stubborn to let her mouth give life to. She knows I’ll take advantage the moment her mouth opens; she’s not wrong, though it’s not for the reason she thinks.

“Neurotic.” I tell her, dragging my fingertips down her throat. White lines form on her flesh, turning quickly to red scratches too light to give her pain, just enough to offer her a taste of pleasure.

I refuse to picture her with any other man. She was made for me. The time that it took for me to find her is a travesty I won’t give any thought to.

I should have had the foresight to seek her out sooner, the faith to believe that there would be someone out there for me who would be capable of making me feel things to my black soul.

She’s accused me of killing her husband, and while I’m not responsible for his death, I wish I was.

I’d kill a thousand men if they dared to stand between her and I.

“I know you had a life before you met me.” I tell her, watching the chords of her neck compress beneath my touch as she swallows her fear.

Her nipples are still tight, telling me she’s not as unamused as she’s trying to appear.

“But you exist for me now, Soren Palmer. When we’re together, no one else exists. ”

I’m not applying any pressure to her windpipe, but I see when her breathing becomes heavy with the weight of my words.

She’s still crying, the tears falling silently as she fights to keep her mouth shut, her emotions in check.

I like the way her tears glitter in the light, the way they make her eyes look alive with rage and pain.

If the only way to get her to open up to me is to make her angry, I’m in a good position. My very existence seems to do that.

My cock is too tight, aching with the need for her.

I need a release, but I am a man of my word.

I will not fuck her any way until she is ready to scream my name like a prayer for vengeance, calling her personal god to rain retribution over her.

I can’t very well teach Soren to control herself if she makes me lose control of myself.

She tenses when my hands grip her hips, her smooth skin sliding under my palms as I fit her against me.

I’m not typically a particular man—I enjoy women of every persuasion.

And Soren is fucking perfect the way she is, but I can feel the sharpness of her bones as I trap her in my touch… harsh and unforgiving.

At least her bones shape a reflection of who she is inside. And it’s as divine as she is on the outside.

“You’re red.” I tell her, stroking a hand over her face, those pink lips that refuse to part for me. I stifle a chuckle as I tighten my grip on her, flipping her through the air so that her upper body twists, her arms crossing beneath her as I line myself up with her entrance.

I feel her stiffen, her breath catching in her throat as she feels my tip nudging into her. “I like you angry, Soren. It’s the only thing I know that’s real.”

My name slips through her teeth in warning, and though I can’t see her face, I can imagine the hatred burning for me.

And yet I feel the way she rocks toward me in anticipation of my intrusion at the same time her arms go limp.

She’s doing a bad job fighting the urge to relent to me because no matter what her brain is saying, her body was made for me.

She only has to get out of the prison of her mind long enough to figure that out.

I press my lips into the crook of her neck, startling her with the tenderness of my kiss.

It coaxes chill bumps to form under my touch; I like the way she tries to bite back a moan at the sensations flooding her, so I repeat the kiss at the top of her spine.

Soren rocks back to meet me again before realizing what she’s doing and correcting it as quickly as it happens.

“Do you hate me?” I ask, kissing her again as I create an invisible trail down her back.

Soren is quiet, and I think at first she’s just unsure how to answer. And then I realize she’s still trying to maintain her silence, refusing me the satisfaction of hearing my name on her tongue.

I pull back quickly enough that she doesn’t even get a chance to figure out what’s happening before I deliver a quick slap across her ass.

Soren jolts forward, a cry slipping out of her as she works to escape me.

She hasn’t figured it out yet that she’ll never escape me again, so I guide her hips back toward me as I lower my lips to her ear.

“When I ask you a question,” my tongue darts out to lick the shell of her ear before pulling her lobe between my teeth. I can’t wait for the moment that I do this with her clit, taste her for the first time.

The pressure in my balls is too much—they’re hot and tight, full for her. She tests my patience—a prize unlike any other—and worth every bit of the sweet agony.

I tug her hair, still wrapped around my fist, until she arches against me, her bare back pressing into me while she tries to relieve the tension between my hand and her scalp. I let her ear drop from my mouth to tell her, “I want an answer.”

She makes a sound that comes out like a sigh, and I pull her flush against me. My erection slides under her legs, skimming her desperate clit, offering her just enough friction to drive her mad without filling the need I stoke in her.

“Yes.” She says, louder this time. It’s terse, full of a sound more like frustration than rage.

“I can’t hear you.” I tell her, transferring my grip on her to my other hand so that I can lift my palm through the air again. “What was that?”

My open hand swells on her ass just as she is opening her mouth to speak. Her simple answer turns into a scream loud enough to raise the dead. The sound of her scream-moaning “yesssss” nearly does me in, but I ignore the ache in me and swat her again.

“Let’s see what I can make redder.” I tell her. “Your face with your anger, or your ass with my hand?”

She backs into me in response, and I swat her again, the stinging spreading over my palm as I deliver stinging blow after stinging blow, pulling a symphony of screams out of her.

In that symphony, she mutters a stream of profanity, her voice rising and falling in timbre as she cries out each time I bring her closer to the pleasure she doesn’t understand.

“Please,” she moans. She doesn’t have to finish that plea.

I know she’s begging for release—I’ve been edging her from the moment that first sweet release overtook her, and she’s growing desperate for another.

The pressure in her must be astronomical to beg me for what she wants, but there’s no way it rivals what I’m feeling.

“Please what?” I ask, my words whispering over her raw flesh. I press a kiss against the red skin, soothe it with a swirl of my tongue, and then pull back to deliver her a final slap.

“Fuck!” It sends her jerking forward and a sob claws out of her chest. “Fuck you!” She grits out, burying her face in the pillow under her chest.

“You will, baby.” I promise, reaching between her legs to get a hold on my cock. I pump it in my fist a moment, relief flooding through me as the pressure counteracts the straining desperation of my erection. “But first, it’s my turn.”

“Declan—” She warns, jumping to get away from me.

I grip the back of her neck and use the leverage she gives me to flip her back to face me, pinning her to the mattress beneath me.

“Open your mouth.”

Her eyes flash anger, but it only deepens the need burning a path through me. I grip myself tighter and try again.

“You can open your mouth, or I can open it for you.”

Her eyes flash again, and it’s damn near enough to pull me apart. But I manage to keep it together as she parts those pillow-soft lips and sucks in a breath. “I hate you.”

“Ren,” I moan, my eyes fluttering closed at the strain in her throat that turns her already-smoky voice downright sultry. “Say it again.”

She doesn’t hesitate. “I hate you.”

Fuccck.

This woman has no idea what she does to me. If she did, she’d luxuriate in the power instead of cowering under it.

I thrust two fingers deep inside of her needy pussy and push into her as far as I can go. She’s warm and soft, and so fucking wet for me as her body molds to my touch, letting me take control of her like a puppet.

“If you want to come again, you’ll have to work for it. Don’t stop.” I demand, pushing her hips until she gets the right rhythm.

Soren does as she’s told for once, rocking back and forth, grinding over my fingers, happy to have taken control even for a moment. Her need for release outweighs her pride, I guess, because she’s a quivering mess for me, her body shaking as she rides my hand.

“Keep going.” I encourage her. “Don’t stop until you come all over my fingers. I want to feel how much you need me. Show me .”

It doesn’t take long—maybe it’s the hatred for me that’s got her coiled like an angry nest of snakes.

Or maybe it’s her greed for another orgasm, heightened by the reality of her situation.

I don’t care what it is that keeps her riding my fingers, all I know is that she gets erratic, her cries becoming strangled as she reaches the tipping point.

I feel her spasm around me, so I work her through it, coating my fingers in her essence as she slows, coming back to earth and the reality of what we just did.

When I pull my fingers out of her, she’s foolish enough to think I’m going to let her be done. Her hips drop, her shoulders ease, her eyes flutter closed.

I squeeze her face in one hand, forcing her eyes open and her cheeks to release all the air in them. Soren is startled enough that she doesn’t have time to bar her teeth and deny me entry, so I hook my cum-coated fingers in her mouth and paint her tongue with her own juices.

“Tell me, Ren,” I say, “do you like the way you taste?”

I think it’s her anger that burns brighter than my hand over the crest of her ass.

She doesn’t hesitate, losing her ability to think rationally as her teeth clamp around my fingers.