Page 10

When he lowered my legs, my every muscle protested. I stayed put, letting my gaze spell what my pride wouldn’t admit.

His palm cradled the back of my skull as the other traced downward—over my ribs, my navel, lower—each touch branding me more thoroughly than any contract.

My tender breasts grew heavy. He cupped my left breast first, his rough, powerful fingers brushing over my perky nipple before increasing pressure.

“Yes, devi—!” My moan fractured into a gasp as his fingers clamped down on my nipple, sharp pain blossoming into white-hot pleasure. The dual sensations crashed through me, leaving my nerves alight.

Then he twisted.

A full rotation. More. As if he meant to tear it free.

Agony and ecstasy collided, wringing a scream from my throat. My head snapped back, but his palm was already there, cradling my skull before it could meet stone.

The realization hit like lightning: pain had always been my secret compass. Even as a child, skinned knees and bruised elbows sent strange flutters through my belly. Now, under his merciless hands, that old truth roared to life.

His fingers didn’t hesitate. Didn’t judge. The certainty in his touch sent a new kind of heat through me—one laced with equal parts dread and exhilaration.

Does he see me as broken? Or does breaking me excite him?

The thought should have terrified me. Instead, my pulse kicked up a notch.

I forced outrage into my voice. “What are you…stop!” The protest sounded thin even to my own ears.

“You came apart beautifully,” he rumbled, thumb circling my hipbone. “And I’ve barely started.”

That promise coiled low in my belly. Unhinged? Perhaps. But the danger only made him more intoxicating.

His hands gripped my knees, spreading me wider before lifting me effortlessly.

Then—

Heat.

The shock of his mouth against me stole all thought. His tongue moved with possessive mastery, each lick sending electric currents up my spine. I gasped, fingers twisting in his hair as my legs trembled. The autumn chill vanished, replaced by the furnace of his devotion.

“Do you want more, my flower?” he whispered against my oversensitive flesh, wreaking havoc on my senses.

I could only moan, my hips rocking of their own accord. More wasn’t a concept—it was a need etched into me.

The scrape of fangs— fangs —against that sensitive peak sent panic slicing through my pleasure. I barely had time to gasp, “No bite!” before sharpness pierced me.

White-hot ecstasy detonated at the point of contact. Pain and pleasure twisted together, wringing a scream from my throat as my back arched off the furs. My legs thrashed, but his grip held firm against the tidal wave crashing through me.

“You’ll be fine, baby.” His voice was smoke and embers.

He was right. The pain melted, leaving only liquid fire in its wake as my body shattered. My first real climax hit like a thunderclap, all-consuming, undeniable, dragging moans from depths I didn’t know I possessed.

His palms pinned my hips as his tongue plunged deeper, drawing out every last tremor of my climax.

I arched up again, my inner walls fluttering around the intrusion, each pulse wringing another satisfied groan from him.

The sound was obscene, primal, like a starved man finally tasting water after years in the desert.

When I pushed up on trembling arms, moonlight gilded the sharp angles of his gorgeous face. His eyes were dark with barely leashed hunger. My gaze dropped to the unmistakable strain against his trousers, the fabric stretched taut over what could only be a massive erection.

Was he going to fuck me next?

My body burned at the thought. Him. Inside me. Filling the emptiness his tongue had only teased.

Yet in the haze of lust, reason pushed through. Once crossed, that threshold couldn’t be uncrossed. Even if no other man would ever compare. Even if every fiber of me ached to give in to this moment.

“Always sweeter than I remember,” he murmured, his voice rough as he lifted his head. The words hung between us. An intimacy that suggested centuries of stolen moments, though this was our first true meeting.

A sudden gust tore through the silent forest, sending dead leaves skittering across the stone table.

Then—

Caw!

The raven’s cry shattered the stillness, its wings cutting through the trees. Distant wails rose in response, that same ghostly chorus from my dream. His body went rigid against my thighs, his head cocking toward the sound.

The last sunlight had vanished hours ago, leaving only the pallid moon to slither past Ravencrux Tower’s peak. A sudden dread pierced through the haze of my lust.

I’d let this go too far. Even now I anticipated him bending me over, driving his massive cock into me, and fucking me like his whore.

Face flaming, I steeled my spine.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he said as if it was a simple fact.

“But who’ll keep me safe from you?” I blurted out.

He smirked. “No one, baby.”

Ice slithered up my spine, yet beneath it,my skin still burned.

“I don’t sleep with strangers.”I yanked my gown down.“It endsnow.”

“Dismiss me so soon?”Winter-green eyes glinted, cruel and amused.A predator toying with trapped prey. “Right after you came so hard on my tongue?”

“You’re ruining this,”I accused.

“I wasn’t planning to fuck you today, little flower,” he crooned. “Next time, when I taste you, it’ll be you who begs me to bend you over, spank you, and fuck you so hard you won’t walk straight for a month.”

My face flushed in anger as I hid the desire and thrill in my eyes. “This was a one-time mistake.” The lie tasted sour even as I said it. I involuntarily licked my lips as nervous energy coursed through me, and a sudden ache rose at the prospect of never seeing him again.

“My little pale flower.” He let out a dark, low chuckle, a calloused finger tracing my jaw.

“You were mine the second I saw you. Now?” His breath scorched the shell of my ear.

“I’d ruin worlds just to keep you.” The threat pulsed beneath the promise.

“This won’t be a one-time thing. This will be a forever thing, and you’ll be mine to play with and to taste and to fuck.

You’ll come when I call. You’ll take what I give.

And you’ll carry this secret like a dagger between your ribs. ”

Lust and fury warred in my veins, equally potent. I wanted to punch his teeth, and I wanted to drag him back between my thighs.

“You don’t scare me.” The words tasted hollow even to me.

A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Oh, I will.” His thumb brushed my lower lip, the touch deceptively gentle. “When you know who the fuck I am.”

My mouth opened—questions about names, about threats—but he silenced me with a look.

“Too late for bargains now.” His fingers tightened in my hair, tilting my head back.

“If you value the lives of your new friends—and you’ll make a few in this school—you’ll come running when I summon you.

Men will be drawn to you, but no one is allowed to touch you.

” His teeth grazed my earlobe, the bite just shy of drawing blood.

“Because you, little flower, were made for my hands alone.”

I drew breath to tell him exactly where he could shove his threats—crude words foreign to my tongue, but he dragged them from me like poison from a wound when his hands framed my face. My palm flew up to strike his wrist, but the blow never landed.

Then his mouth was on mine.

His lips tasted of mint and formidable male, his scent of sandalwood and flame wrapping around me like a spell. My fingers, meant to push him away, tangled in his hair instead.

First kisses were supposed to be sweet. This waspossession .

He deepened the kiss, and I parted my lips for him. His tongue invaded my territory, and I tasted myself on his lips. It should horrify me instead of turning me on.

Somewhere in the haze, the dream whispered of drowning and dying, but his hands anchored me to the present. To the dangerous truth:

I didn’t want to let go.

I wrenched myself away with what little willpower remained.

This had to end now.

I wasn’t in his league. A male like him, all danger and dark promises, would drag me under if I lingered.

“That’s enough.” I pushed off the stone table, my gown falling back into place.

His dark, amused chuckle curled around me like smoke. “It willnever be enough.” A shadow shifted where he’d stood—then vanished. Only his voice remained, slithering through the trees: “Run back to your tower, little flower. Hide behind its walls. But nowhere exists where I won’t find you.”