Page 53 of Watch Me Burn

CATERINA

W e barely stumbled through the front door without ripping each other apart right there in the hallway. Thank God we made it, though, because now that we’re here? This doesn’t feel like any ordinary night at home anymore.

This feels like we just walked into some kind of sacred space. Like we’re standing in a cathedral built from all the chaos we just unleashed.

Aaron’s already losing it—his hands are everywhere, yanking at my shirt before the foyer elevator doors even think about closing.

His eyes have that look. You know the one.

That feral, unhinged thing that happens when adrenaline and power mix into something dangerous.

Like a couple of drunk teenagers, except we’re not drunk on anything but violence and each other.

“Come here,” he growls, voice rough but I don’t move.

Not tonight.

I take a single step back, letting lust stretch between us like a loaded wire. “Make me.”

He lunges at me and my back slams into the wall so hard I lose my breath. His hands lock around my wrists like manacles, pinning them overhead as he crushes me into the concrete with barely-leashed force.

His mouth claims mine, punishing as his teeth drag across my bottom lip until I taste metal. Until copper stains our kiss with blood and triumph and something darker still.

“Jesus Christ, you were incredible out there,” he breathes against my neck, his teeth finding that spot that makes me lose my mind. “The way you just— fuck —the way you handled that bastard.”

My whole body lights up like a live wire. I can’t help but push closer, feeling how solid and warm he is against me. “Yeah? Well, you weren’t exactly playing nice either. Those guards didn’t know what hit them.”

The glint in his eyes turns savage, possessive in a way I’ve never seen before, like something primal just woke up and decided I belonged to it.

The moment I roll my hips against him—because I’m apparently a glutton for punishment—his whole face changes. Goes from heated to downright predatory.

He doesn’t ask if I want this.

Doesn’t need to.

“I’m going to ruin you, Caterina Jackson. Rip you apart until the only thing you can manage to say is my fucking name.”

Then I’m spinning, chest slamming into the cold wall, breath knocked from my lungs.

My hands catch automatically against the surface, but there’s no pause.

He pulls at my clothes. Ripping seams, shredding fabric until I’m bare and panting.

My skin prickles under his stare, exposed and trembling in the still air.

He steps back just enough to look at me, before his hand cracks hard across my ass, sharp and sudden. I cry out, the sound strangled, lost somewhere between shock and arousal.

Another strike. Harder this time.

The sting lances up my spine, and I jolt forward—only for him to follow, pressing close, grinding his cock against my ass, thick and hard through his pants.

“You fucking love this,” he breathes against my ear. “Being handled. Claimed. Marked where everyone will know who you belong to.”

His fingers slide between my thighs, seeing how wet I already am for him. He laughs, dark and knowing, as I moan for more.

“You’re already dripping for me. Filthy girl.”

Without warning, two fingers drive into me, deep and punishing. My back arches against his chest, mouth open in a silent gasp.

He’s dismantling me. Not gently. Not sweetly. But with bruising purpose, as if every inch he touches belongs to him.

And then, he’s gone. Fingers ripped away with no warning, leaving me soaked, empty, trembling with need.

The rasp of his zipper cuts through the silence, sharp as a blade.

A heartbeat later, he grips his cock, drags it through the slick between my thighs, and drives into me with a punishing thrust that knocks the air from my lungs.

I cry out—raw, stretched wide, split open by the sheer force of him.

His pace is unforgiving from the start.

Each brutal snap of his hips slams into me with perfect, calculated cruelty, every thrust coaxing a broken sound from my throat.

His hand closes around my throat like a vice, the other tangling in my hair and wrenching my head back until my mouth is open for him.

“You like this?” he growls into my ear, every word punctuated by a violent thrust. “Being used like a toy? Fucked until you forget your own name?”

I can’t answer. Can’t think.

I’m nothing but heat, hunger and the dark, twisted bliss of being undone.

All I can do is feel.

Every brutal thrust.

Every jolt of pain sharpened into pleasure.

Every inch of him driving deeper, harder—until my body stops resisting and starts pleading.

I cling to him, nails raking down the side of his thighs as I shatter around him, moans torn from my throat like confessions.

He obliterates me, sinking his teeth into the curve of my neck, then my shoulder. I let out a sob as blood crawls down my skin. Aaron’s tongue follows the blood like it’s sacrament, groaning low like a man starved.

“You’re mine now. Marked in blood. Inside and out.”

Before I can catch my breath, he drags me onto the couch, the cushions breaking my fall as he flips me onto my back. His hands are everywhere, rough and demanding as he forces my thighs apart, spreading me wide.

The weight of his stare lands on me like a brand. “Look at you. So fucking perfect.”

He slams back into me, harder now. His hips rut with vicious rhythm, the sound of our bodies slamming together lewd and raw.

The couch groans beneath us. My cries grow ragged. My body trembles, teetering on the edge.

His hand wraps tight around my throat again, dragging me up by the neck as he fucks me—his mouth at my ear, breath hot and vicious.

He lets go of my throat, only to grip my hips like a man possessed, fingertips bruising. He puts his hand over my heart, keeping me caged beneath him, completely owned.

I’m unraveling. Pleasure builds too fast, making my vision go white at the edges.

He doesn’t slow. Doesn’t relent.

Not until I come on his cock, calling out his name like a curse. My back arches as I orgasm so violently it borders on agony.

But he’s not done.

Not even close.

“No more,” I breathe out, hoping he will slow down.

“I’m not done fucking my name into you.”

“Aaron, please…I can’t?—”

The plea escapes, raw and gasping, but it doesn’t stop him.

“Look at me.” He grabs my jaw, forcing me to look up at him.

I do. I have no choice.

“Say you’re mine.”

I nod frantically, voice catching on the brink of another orgasm. “Yours. Fuck , Aaron—I’m yours.”

Triumph flashes across his face like lightning before the storm breaks.

He grinds forward and I shatter again.

My scream rips through the penthouse, echoing off glass and concrete like a call to a violent god. I clench around him, convulsing in aftershock as I lose all sense of space, of time, of anything that isn’t him inside me.

And then he follows. Grunting through clenched teeth as he drives deep, spilling inside me with a low, animalistic sound.

His release floods me, limbs tangled, skin slick with sweat, blood, and come. Every bruise, every bite, every broken moan—evidence of the war we just waged with our bodies.

I lie in the aftermath, muscles shaking, chest heaving as I try to come back down to Earth.

Aaron doesn’t let me go. He wraps around me like a chain, pulling me flush against his chest, pressing hot kisses to my temple, my jaw, the bloody bite mark on my neck.

“Are you okay?”

I close my eyes, feeling it all at once. “More than okay.”

“I never wanted war until you.”

“And I never wanted peace until you,” I whisper.

He pulls back, looking down at me. “But we want it together now, don’t we?”

“Always. As long as it’s you next to me when it all ends.”

He hums, satisfied as he kisses me. His fingers trail lazily between my thighs, brushing the slick mess he left inside me. I shiver—overstimulated, sore, and somehow already aching for more.

“The question now, my queen…” His fingers dip lower, coaxing another helpless whimper from me. “Is what happens next?”

I don’t need to think.

“Doyle’s limping back to Dublin.” I roll onto him, muscles burning. “Let him believe he’s safe—before we go after him.”

Aaron’s smile is pure sin. “Expansion is good. Dublin could use new owners.”

I straddle him, savoring the heat in his eyes. My body is sore, marked, leaking, but I’ve never felt more alive.

My tongue traces the seam of his mouth. “First New York. Then Dublin. Together we’re unstoppable.”

He groans, grabbing my hips and slamming me down onto him in one brutal motion.

I cry out, tearing open the silence.

And then I ride, hard and without mercy.

My hands pin his wrists to the couch, my hips grinding down in punishing rhythm. I use him the way he used me, owning every part of him. Destroying him. His head falls back, throat bared.

I pant. “You’re mine now, too.”

His hands break free, gripping my ass as he forces me deeper.

“You’re goddamn right I am.”

His thumb finds my clit, circling with just enough pressure. Heat wraps up my spine, dragging me over the edge again. Clamping down like my body refuses to let him go.

Aaron follows with a savage grunt, fingers digging into my flesh, holding me still as he spills inside me again. I don’t even know how we lost ourselves again so quickly.

I’m done for in the best possible way—bruised, bitten, worshipped.

His hands are everywhere. Blood-slick fingers ghosting over the marks he left on my thighs, down my ribs, across the bites that bloom along my body.

He presses a kiss to the crown of my head, his breath warm against my hair.

“This life is ours now. Everything I am, everything I’ll ever become, led me to this. To you.”

My breath catches. “I love you.”

He stills beneath me, and I feel how the words thread under his skin. His chest rises sharply beneath mine.

“I think I always have, Aaron. I just didn’t know how to say it.”

He exhales, like the weight he’s carried has finally torn open his chest.

“I knew.” His hand cups my face, thumb brushing my bottom lip. “Even before you did. I knew, Caterina.”

“But you waited…without saying anything. Why?”

His eyes burn into my soul. “Because I was always going to choose you. Every time. Every way. No matter how the story ended.”

I press my forehead against his, and suddenly I’m drowning in everything we’ve been through. All the nights I thought I’d lose him. All the times we should have died but didn’t. All the pieces of ourselves we’ve had to sacrifice just to make it this far.

We’re not who we used to be. God, we’re so far from those people it’s almost funny. We’re something else now. Something fierce and unbreakable and finally, finally belonging to each other.

Aaron holds me as if I might still slip away if he lets go.

Like he still can’t quite believe I’m real, that I chose him, that we made it through the fire together.

And there’s something in his grip—desperate and reverent and absolutely certain—that makes my chest tight with a truth I can barely breathe around:

We built this life on the graves of who we used to be. And maybe that’s exactly how it was supposed to happen.

So let them come. Let the whole damn world line up to try and tear us down. Let them bring everything they’ve got.

They have no idea what they’re up against.

We’ve already lost everything that mattered and found each other in the wreckage. We’ve already died a thousand small deaths and chosen each other every single time.

There’s nothing left they can take from us that would break us.

Nothing they can do that we haven’t already survived.

And if they think they can touch what we’ve built? If they think they can touch him ?

I’ll burn the whole world to ash before I let that happen.