Page 16 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

I wake to heat. The kind that blooms low and pulses deep, warm and wicked in a way dreams can’t conjure.

His mouth is already on me.

Tongue sliding up the inside of my thigh, teeth grazing just enough to make my leg twitch. My eyes blink open slowly, the ceiling swimming into view as his hands press down—one on each hip, holding me in place like I might vanish if he lets go.

“You’re late,”

I say, voice rough with sleep and amusement.

“You’re naked,”

he answers. The edge in his voice is hunger wearing civility like a second skin.

“Keep up, Dalmar. I’m always naked when you’re around.”

He licks me like it’s a science. Like he’s not eating me out—he’s dismantling me. One slow stroke at a time, patient, methodical, almost detached. Except his fingers are trembling where they grip me. Just a little. Like even he’s not immune to this.

My breath catches. He knows exactly where to start—just soft enough to tease, just firm enough to pull sound from me before I’m ready to give it. He takes his time, his tongue circling my clit with maddening precision before dipping down again, tasting, pressing, building.

I shift beneath him, restless, already wet, already aching. He tightens his grip, pushing my hips down harder into the mattress.

“Stay still,”

he murmurs, voice rough against my skin, his breath like sin.

“Then don’t tease.”

But he does.

Gods, he does.

He sucks my clit between his lips and I moan—sharp, high, helpless. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t speed up either. He holds me open, tongue working slow figure-eights while his other hand slides lower, fingers slipping into me with obscene ease. I gasp. Arch.

“Fuck—”

He groans against me, and the vibration nearly undoes me. His tongue flicks, circles, drags. His fingers curl, drag out, press back in—steady and slow, drawing slick sounds from me that fill the quiet room like a song he composed.

I come once, too fast. It rips through me, sharp and sudden. I clench around his fingers and he groans again, this time louder, like he likes it too much. Like he gets off on the sound of me falling apart for him.

I reach down, fisting my hand in his hair, tugging hard enough to make him grunt. He pulls back with a wet sound, lips shiny, breathing harder now. His eyes drag up the length of me—lazily, possessively—and he licks his bottom lip like he’s considering going again.

“You going to fuck me,”

I pant, “or are you just here to gloat?”

“Spread.”

I arch a brow.

“No ‘please’?”

“Not tonight.”

I let him. Because that’s the deal. No ownership. No surrender. Just sex. Just release.

He shifts up the bed, pressing the length of his body to mine as he grabs my thighs and spreads me wide. His cock drags over my folds, slick with me, head catching on my entrance as he grinds slowly—too slowly—teasing me again.

I glare. “If you don’t fuck me right now, I swear to the gods—”

He thrusts in, deep and brutal. The air leaves my lungs in a gasp. No warning. No easing in. Just one sharp, thick slide that fills me to the edge of pain.

And fuck, it’s perfect.

I claw at his back, nails dragging lines down the muscle there, and he groans—low and guttural—driving in harder. He sets a pace that isn’t frantic, but punishing. Every thrust hits deep, angled perfectly, calculated like a threat. His hands pin mine above my head. His chest brushes mine. Sweat slicks our skin.

He’s still watching me.

Still wearing that cold, unreadable expression. Like fucking me is a strategy. Like this isn’t about need—it’s about winning.

I bite his shoulder and he hisses, hips stuttering. “Harder,”

I growl, and he gives it to me.

The rhythm shifts. Faster. Rougher. The slap of skin echoes off the walls. I moan into his mouth, panting against his lips as he pounds into me like he’s got something to prove—and maybe he does.

Maybe this is how Ambrose Dalmar begs. With cock. With teeth. With the kind of steady, soul-stealing fuck that leaves no room for thought.

“You’re going to scream,”

he says, like a prophecy.

I laugh, breathless. “Make me.”

So he does.

I come again—harder this time, messier. My body tightens around him, and he swears, driving into me like he’s chasing something just out of reach.

He’s losing control.

I can feel it in the way his rhythm starts to falter. In the way he buries his face in my neck, breathing hard, murmuring curses that melt into my skin. I hook my legs around him, drag him deeper, and he growls—loud and ragged—before he slams in one last time and spills inside me with a broken sound I’ve never heard from him.

He stays there. Still. Breathless. His weight pressed into mine, grounding me, suffocating in the best way.

And then, like nothing happened—like he didn’t just fuck me like the world was ending—he pulls out, slow and deliberate, and stands.

Silent. Distant. Already putting himself back together.

I watch him dress without shame, legs still open, body wrecked, not bothering to move.

“You’re getting predictable,”

I murmur, still sprawled in the ruins of our arrangement.

He pauses. Glances over his shoulder.

“You’re getting loud.”

“You like it.”

His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. Not quite denial. He buttons his pants, slips into his coat, smooths his hair like none of this touched him.

“That’s it?”

I ask, breath still shallow. “No cryptic comment? No post-coital threat?”

He reaches for his belt. “Next time, don’t fall asleep.”

I grin, wicked and sharp. “Next time, don’t make me come so fast.”

“That was slow,” he says.

And then he’s gone. Leaving me flushed, fucked, and still smiling. Because I made him lose control. And he’ll never admit it.

The sound is faint at first—just a catch in the silence.

It takes me a second to realize what it is. I sit up in bed, the sheets falling to my hips, skin still warm from dreams I can’t remember. The sob is muffled. Masculine. The kind that isn’t meant to be heard. And the second I recognize it, I know.

Caspian.

He hasn’t been okay—not really. Not since the pillar, not since Branwen sunk her claws into his magic and left her scent inside his skin. And now, after what the circle said—after Ambrose—he’s fraying.

The hallway is cold under my bare feet, and I don’t bother with slippers or a robe. I don’t knock. I don’t ask. I just slip through his door and into the dark.

He’s curled away from me on the bed, blanket half-kicked off, still in his shirt from earlier, collar open, throat exposed. His breathing stutters when I sit on the edge. I don’t speak. I just climb in.

The second my body presses to his, he freezes. Then he exhales, a sharp, wrecked sound like something inside him just snapped loose.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,”

he murmurs, voice low and rough like he’s been swallowing gravel.

“You didn’t.”

I curl behind him, arm sliding around his waist, anchoring him. He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t move. Just lets me hold him. He’s all contradictions—heat under my palm, cold in the curve of his spine. Lust incarnate with no desire to touch. And yet, he lets me in. He always lets me in.

“You okay?”

I ask, though we both know the answer.

He huffs a laugh, the sound twisted with something that tastes like heartbreak. “Do I look okay?”

I nuzzle into the space between his shoulder blades, breathing him in. “You never look okay. You look like sin with too much mouth.”

“Flattering.”

“I’m known for my charm.”

His hand lifts, finding mine where I’ve pressed it to his chest. He laces our fingers together. It’s intimate. Bare. No flirtation. No teasing. Just Caspian, unraveling one thread at a time.

“He can’t die,”

he says, voice cracking at the edge. “I know Ambrose—he’ll do it. He’ll fucking do it and smile while he goes.”

I close my eyes. “He won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

Silence stretches. He’s trying to hold it together, I can feel it in the way his chest rises sharp and shallow. In the way his thumb rubs over mine like he needs to move or he’ll disappear.

“There were others,”

he says suddenly. “Other Sin Binders. I didn’t see them when I was there… but what if they’re buried under it? What if they’re trapped with her? Just… waiting to be swallowed.”

His voice cracks again, and this time it cuts straight through me.

“I didn’t even think about them. I was so focused on Branwen—on surviving—I didn’t wonder if I was alone.”

“You were never alone,”

I whisper.

“I don’t mean—”

he breathes in, shakily. “I know you pulled me out. I know. But , if that’s where they all went—if that place is a graveyard for your kind… what the fuck are we doing binding you? What if every step is leading you to the same fate?”

“It’s not.”

“You can’t know that.”

I shift, pushing him onto his back gently, rising up over him until we’re eye to eye in the dark. My hand cups his jaw, thumb grazing the edge of his mouth. “Then we burn the fucking system down before it takes me.”

His eyes close, his throat working like he’s trying not to cry again.

“Cass,”

I whisper.

And when I kiss him, it’s not about sex or heat. It’s not about want. He doesn’t kiss back—not at first. Then slowly, like his bones are learning the shape of safety, his lips move under mine. Soft. Starving. Barely there.

When I pull away, he whispers, “Stay.”

“Always.”

And I do. Because if the pillar wants me, it’ll have to come through all of them first.

His mouth moves beneath mine with a kind of reverence that splits me open more than anything rough ever could.

There’s no rush. No heat-for-the-sake-of-it. Just the slow, careful press of lips on lips, like he’s still trying to convince himself I’m real. That I want to be here. With him.

And I do.

My body hums with it. This quiet need. This ache that’s not about sex or conquest or proving anything. It’s just him. Caspian. The man who pretends he’s only made of sin and smirks, but kisses like he’s afraid the world will end if he breathes too hard.

I shift closer, pressing my hand to his chest. His heart flutters against my palm—uneven. Unsteady. He lets out a breath against my mouth and the sound is wrecked.

Still, he doesn’t ask for more.

That’s what destroys me.

Because any other man would take. Has taken.

But Caspian waits.

I tilt my head, deepening the kiss—not with hunger, but with purpose. A gentle drag of lips. A quiet slide of tongue. My fingers trail to his jaw, then back into his hair. He shudders like I’ve cursed him. Or saved him. I can’t tell which.

When I pull back, his eyes are glassy in the dark, wide and too open. He looks at me like I just handed him something he didn’t think he was allowed to have.

I lower my head to his shoulder, curling into the crook of his body. “Don’t shut down,”

I whisper against his skin.

He doesn’t respond right away. His arm slides around my back, slow. Cautious. Like he’s afraid he’ll crack me open if he holds too tightly. “I won’t,”

he finally says, voice hoarse. “Not with you here.”

We lie like that—tangled and still. His thumb drags idle patterns against the curve of my spine, and I can feel the battle in him quiet. Not gone. Never gone. But for this moment, this breath, he lets himself rest.

I bury my face in his throat and breathe him in.

Not because he asks for it.

Because he needs it.

And because I do, too.

He doesn’t meet my eyes when he asks. Doesn’t even look at me.

It’s routine now—this question that scrapes across my skin like sandpaper every time he says it. Casually. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I won’t notice the quiet ache behind the words. Like I’m supposed to pretend the softness between us doesn’t exist unless we fuck it into shape.

“Do you want to?”

he mumbles, voice rough and barely there. “Sex. I mean… if you want it.”

I let out a breath, not frustrated with him—not really—but with whatever’s curled its claws into his sense of worth, whatever part of him decided this was all he was good for. Lust without warmth. Contact without connection. It’s like he thinks his body is the only offering he has left, and I hate that he ever learned that lesson.

I shift, resting my head more fully against his chest, letting the beat of his heart speak louder than the question he asked. “No,”

I say simply.

Then, because I know he’ll try to retreat into himself otherwise, I roll my eyes and say, “Unless you’ve got some snacks hidden somewhere. In that case, maybe we can negotiate.”

He lets out a soft, huffed laugh. It’s not real humor—not fully—but it’s a crack in the stone he’s carved around himself, and I’ll take it.

“You come crawling into my bed,”

he says, voice teasing but brittle at the edges, “and you don’t even want me for my body. Devastating.”

“You’re a pretty pillow, Caspian. That’s your function now. Deal with it.”

His arm curls tighter around me, and for once, it’s not about pulling me into anything more. It’s about anchoring. About breathing together in the dark and pretending—for just a little longer—that the world outside the bed doesn’t exist.

“Do you ever think it could be… different?”

he asks suddenly, quietly.

My throat tightens. I don’t ask what he means. We both know.

“I think it already is,”

I whisper.

And he doesn’t say anything else.

But he doesn’t ask again either.

“We should get back at Silas.”

His snort rumbles beneath me, soft and sharp all at once, like he doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of amusing him but can’t help it either. It’s the first real sound of life I’ve felt from him in days. Not a tease, not a flirt, not a flash of performative lust—just Caspian, raw and bruised and still there underneath.

He shifts slightly, propping his chin against the top of my head like he’s resigned to whatever chaos I’m about to bring. “What exactly do you have in mind, Little Sin?”

he asks, voice still thick with sleep and something darker, something sadder, but warmer now. Curious.

I grin against his chest, wicked and unapologetic. “Oh, nothing violent. Yet. I was thinking something subtle. Psychological warfare.”

“That sounds disturbingly erotic when you say it like that.”

He hums. “Do go on.”

I pull back just enough to see his face. There’s color there again. Not much, but it’s better than the blankness from earlier. His mouth is curled—not quite into a smirk, but it’s trying. I hook my leg over his and lay half on top of him now, watching his eyes flick to my mouth and then guiltily away.

“Silas is due,”

I say. “Due for one of his own theatrics flipped back at him. I thought maybe… we enchant one of his hoodies to whisper his darkest secrets to whoever wears it.”

Caspian blinks at me. Then laughs. Not a soft chuckle—an honest, sharp sound that makes my chest ache in the best way.

“Whispers his secrets?”

he says, lifting an eyebrow. “Like what? That he once kissed a mirror thinking it was someone else? Or that he has a whole folder in his spellbook labeled ’s Hair: Volumes 1 through 6?”

“You’re joking.”

“Am I?”

He grins now, full and bright. My Caspian. The real one. The one I haven’t seen since Branwen twisted him apart and left the seams raw.

“And what happens when the hoodie starts spilling secrets Silas didn’t even know he had?”

he asks, voice lowering. “You know he’s got skeletons. Not in the closet—on the roof.”

I shrug, unrepentant. “Then maybe he’ll think twice before finishing summoning circles with eyeliner and dragging sexy clones of me into existence.”

Caspian quiets again, but this time it’s thoughtful. He’s looking at me like I’m something worth being pulled into. Something worth coming back for.

He kisses me once. Just once. It’s not hungry. It’s not performative.

It’s grounding.

“Okay,”

he says. “Let’s break his mind.”

And we will. But first, I’m going to stay right here, listening to the rhythm of his breath, memorizing the shape of this moment. Because we don’t get many quiet nights. And I want to remember what it feels like when he laughs like that—like he’s still whole.