Page 19 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)
I see it, the shift. The way his mouth goes slack with rage. The way his pupils blow wide with possession. Then he steps back with hands shaking. “Get dressed,” he says. Quiet. Dangerous. “Now.” I arch a brow.
“Or what?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not scared of pain.”
He swallows that, barely, and turns and walks out. Not because he’s done. Because if he stays, he’ll break something…me. Himself. The world.
He doesn’t speak when I step into the room and I still haven’t gotten dressed.
He’s sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows braced on his knees, shirt half-unbuttoned from when I tried to rip it off him earlier.
His fists are clenched. His knuckles bone-white.
He doesn’t look at me. Not until I pass him.
Then, he grabs my wrist. Yanks me into his lap and kisses me like he’s starving and I’m the last drop of water in a dying world.
His mouth is savage. Tongue ruthless. Hands greedy and cruel as they claim every inch of bare skin.
One hand on my throat, the other between my thighs, sliding through the slick heat like he’s confirming something he already knows.
“Already wet,” he growls against my lips. “Was that for him?”
“No,” I hiss. “It was for me.” He bites my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.
“Good,” he whispers. “Then taste it.” And I fucking do.
He plunges two fingers into me, slowly and deliberately. When he pulls them back, they’re coated in my slick. He doesn’t even have to tell me. He just brings them to my mouth.
I open for him. Suck his fingers in deep. One at a time. Tongue curling, lips sealing tight. I moan around them like they’re his cock, dragging my mouth down slowly, tasting every filthy drop of myself while he watches .
His jaw twitches. His pupils blow wide. He growls, low and dangerous.
And when I pull off with a wet pop and look him in the eye?
He fucking snaps. He moans like he’s been denied oxygen, like my breath is the only thing that will bring him back.
He stands in one clean movement and carries me like I weigh nothing and drops me on the fucking kitchen table.
My back hits the wood. Hard. I gasp. And then he’s on his knees.
No teasing. No warning. No buildup.
Just his mouth sealing over my cunt like it belongs there. Like he’s starving and I’m the feast. His tongue is wicked, relentless, and obscene. He groans into me like he needs the sound to echo inside my body. “You taste like sin,” he growls, mouth slick with me. “Like you were made for this.”
I don’t answer. Just arch harder. Grind against his face.
One hand in his hair, the other fisting the edge of the table like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered.
He makes me come. Once. Twice. He’s not stopping.
He’s punishing me with it now. Angry. Desperate.
A storm in a man’s body, trying to wash away every trace of someone else.
“You think he can do this?” Riven snarls as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.
“You think Elias, or Vale, or whoever the fuck he is…you think he can wreck you like I can?”
I try to speak, to ask the question clawing its way up my throat…
Who is Vale? Is that V? ... but nothing comes out.
He flips me over, chest pressed to the wood, ass in the air.
One hand between my shoulder blades. The other stroking his cock behind me.
I twist to look at his eyes—wild, mouth parted—but he’s already there, pressed against my entrance.
“You still feel him?” Knowing I can’t respond, he continues.
“Good. Now feel me deeper.” One brutal thrust and he’s inside, deep, unforgiving.
I cry out…raw, torn, ruined…and he doesn’t stop.
Doesn’t ease up. Each thrust is war. A declaration.
His cock buried in me like he’s trying to stake a claim.
“This pussy is mine,” he snarls at my ear.
“Not his. Not theirs. Mine.” I shove back against him.
“I’m not yours.”
“Then why the fuck are you clenching like that when I say it?” He grabs my hair. Pulls hard. My spine arches. My scream shatters the silence. He leans over me. Mouth at my neck. Voice broken glass. “ Say it.”
“No.”
He fucks me harder. “Say it, Lux.”
“Fuck. No.”
His hand slides from my hair to my throat. He doesn’t choke me but the action shows me how easily he could. “Fucking. Say. It.”
I spit it at him. “I’m not yours.”
He stills. Pulls out. I almost sob from the loss, relieved that he’s stopped but still desperate for more.
He grabs me, flips me, lifts me and moves like I’m weightless.
Drops onto the couch with me in his lap.
He lines himself up again and slowly sinks in.
Deep. Ruinous . “You don’t get to choose,” he says through clenched teeth.
“Not right now. Not after that little performance.”
I try to ride him. He doesn’t let me. Holds me still.
Forces me to feel every inch of him like punishment.
I lean in, lips to his ear. “This isn’t about him,” I whisper.
“This is about me.” His jaw ticks. His grip slips.
That’s all I need. I take everything. I roll my hips slow.
Sensual. Grind until I feel him twitch inside me.
I grab his wrists, pin them to the couch.
Kiss his throat. Bite his jaw. Then I fuck him.
Long, deep strokes. Dominant. Dark. Eyes locked on his like I’m daring him to break first. “Who do YOU belong to?” I whisper.
He tries to speak. I clench. He groans. “Say it.”
“You…fuck, Lux, you…”
“Say it.”
“Fuck…I’m yours.”
I ride him harder. “I own this cock,” I hiss.
He nods, frantic, desperate.
“Say it.”
“You fucking own me.” I lean in. Kiss him once. Soft. Then come so hard I forget who I am. He follows with a roar that shakes the floorboards. And when we collapse, sweat-slick, breathless, and destroyed, it’s not love between us.
It’s war.
One I don’t plan to lose.