Page 238 of The Devil's Thorn

Even as his eyes searched mine with that unreadable heat, like he was trying to decide if I could take what he wanted to give.

And then—slowly, deliberately—he brought his thumb to my lips.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“Open,” he said, voice low, a rasp beneath the calm.

I did.

My lips parted, and he slid the pad of his thumb past them, pressing it gently to my tongue. Not hard. Just enough to feel.

Toown.

My breath caught. He didn’t push further. He just held it there, his gaze locked on mine like he was watching something shift in me. Something that couldn’t be undone.

“Look at you,” he murmured, thumb still in my mouth. “So good for me. So quiet. Like you knew all along you’d end up here.”

I felt my pulse pound in my ears. Heat burned up the back of my neck, down my spine. Not from shame. From the weight of the truth in his voice.

Because he wasn’t wrong. Ihadknown. Maybe not in words. Not in plans. But in the way my body stilled every time he walked into a room. In the way my mind curled around his voice, hispresence, his control like a lifeline I didn’t ask for but couldn’t let go.

He slid his thumb out slowly, dragging it against my lower lip as he withdrew. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

“Stand up,” he said quietly.

My legs felt heavy as I moved, rising to my feet with the slow grace of someone walking deeper into a fire they had no intention of escaping.

“Turn around.”

I did.

I felt the air shift behind me. He stepped close—so close his breath touched the back of my neck before his lips did.

The first kiss was soft. A brush. Then another. And another. Then teeth. He bit, not hard, but enough to make mefeelit. Enough to leave a mark. And again. Lower this time—along the curve where my neck met my shoulder.

My hands twitched at my sides, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Because my body wasn’t mine in that moment. It washis.

“Do you feel that?” he said, his voice hot against my skin. “You belong to me now. Not in theory. Not in whispers.”

He kissed the spot he’d bitten, as if to soothe it.

“You came here thinking you were looking for answers. But it was always me. It’sonlyever been me.”

And then I felt it— The brush of silk against my wrists. The sash.

He took his time, looping it around once. Then again. Slow, smooth movements, the fabric cool at first, then warming with my skin.

His fingers tightened the knot—not painfully, but enough.

Enough to hold me.

And he didn’t let go of the trailing end.

I swallowed, throat dry. My pulse felt like thunder. And then—he reached up and curled his fingers beneath my chin again, tilting my head just enough, just far enough. So he could claim my mouth. And he did.

The kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t hesitant. It was adevouring.

His lips moved over mine with possession, with need, with something between reverence and punishment. Like he wanted to consume every breath I had left and leave me marked in a way no holy place could cleanse.