Page 70 of The Blood we Crave

Lyra’s legs wind around my waist, urging me closer, desperate to have me when she should fight to get far, far away from me. If she knew how I want her, the things I want to put her body through, she wouldn’t be so needy for me.

Yet, here she is.

“Yes, you’re my teacher,” she whimpers, her small hands tightening in my jacket.

I nod, taking my bottom lip between my teeth, letting the blade move higher until it’s touching her throat. The sharpness dances along her delicate skin but not with enough pressure to split her open.

Not yet.

“Then why thefuckis Conner Godfrey touching what belongs to me?”

The haze of lust fogging her eyes wavers.

“Wh-hat?” she stutters out, taking a second to figure out what I’m talking about. “Wait, you were watching me in class?”

I drag my left hand behind her neck, lacing my fingers into her wild curls. My grip is painfully tight, making a long whine pull from her throat. I use my hold as leverage, tilting her head back further, forcing her throat towards the tip of the knife.

“Thatch,” she hisses when it bites into her skin.

“There I was, walking to my next class,” I interrupt her, watching the first drop of blood pour from the small slit I’d created on her neck. A long stream of red trickles down the column of her throat. “When I walk past an open classroom door and catch Conner Godfrey drooling over your hand.”

My hips jerk forward, my cock grinding against her core. Through all our clothes, I can still feel how soaked she is, leaking wetness from between her thighs, her body dripping from my touch.

“Tell me, what made you think other men could touch you?” I lean down so that my mouth is hovering just above her nose. “What made you think anyone but me could touch you?”

Using the blunt edge of the knife, I gather the blood on her throat across the metal, bringing it farther up her neck until it reaches her chin, careful not to cut her further, smearing a path of red on my way.

“He was looking at my ring. That was all.” Her voice wobbles, but her hips push towards me, rolling timidly against my crotch, seeking friction to aid her desire.

“You think I care what he was looking at?” I bite out.

The fury from watching Conner Godfrey rub his grimy hands across her own fuels my every action. I’m blind to everything but proving my point. My control snaps clean in two when it comes to Lyra Abbott, a shattered break with no hopes of mending.

I loathe it.

How wild she makes me. How out of my mind her every move makes me. She’s tainted me in ways my father had and would never.

I am a man of order, routine, and strict cleanliness.

And she is my filthy little pet.

Yet the only dirty I ever want to be is hers.

“It’s not like that. He’s only a friend.” She swallows as I rest the top half of the blade on her lips. The dark red liquid coats her cherry-flavored mouth, making her look just as sweet as I know she tastes.

“You’re correct, pet,” I say coldly, tracing the shape of her lips with the blood-soaked dagger and painting her red, covering her in my favorite color. “He is not me. He will never be me.”

She opens without my command, allowing the knife to drop into her mouth. My cock strains in my pants, ravenous for more of her when I see that pink tongue curl around the steel.

I let her play.

Allow her to swirl her tongue around the metal and gently suck off her own mess until she’s cleaned it off. The aroma of cherries and tangy blood fills my nose, and it makes me greedy.

I remove it from her mouth just in time for her to speak again.

“But,” she chokes out, rolling her tongue across to catch the drips along her lip, “what if he can teach me things you can’t?”

Is this how she plans to get what she wants from me? By pushing me far past my breaking point, into territory no one should be?