Page 25 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

Good God, there was a list of things she wanted from him right now, starting with that insatiable need for him to touch that pulsing throb between her legs.

“Everything,” Sarah gasped as he shoved her jeans down the swell of her ass.

One hand moved up, taking her by the throat while his tongue rolled around her stack of earrings…

the other traveled beneath the lace of her thong to meet the soaking mess he’d made of her without even touching it.

Athan’s foot kicked one of hers to the side, opening her legs wider and his approving groan in her ear as he finally slipped his fingers through her, made her absolutely feral.

Her face was on fire. Shit, her entire body was buzzing, and every stroke of his deft fingers was smooth, calculated, and deliberate.

He knew exactly how to dangle her over the edge, and he was enjoying every second of her torture.

It took all of five seconds after he brought those fingers to his mouth to taste her to have them both completely naked, and the next thing she knew, he’d slammed her with enough force against the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen, to leave spider-webbed cracks.

Sarah smiled with a cheek pressed against the wall.

He hooked an arm under her knee, raising it high enough that her other foot nearly came off the floor, and she cried out as those sinful fangs sank down into the tattoo between her neck and shoulder.

Without so much as a warning, he pulled her head back by her hair and thrust himself inside her.

Not a single inch of him remained outside her body.

A scream tore from her throat and her arms struggled against the belt around her wrists while his tongue rolled, drawing a long swallow of her blood, and his hips retreated, slamming back into her.

“Fuck!” The word came out more like a wailing moan, dragging out, and breaking on every punishing thrust as he fucked…

faster… harder . Absolutely brutal, and unhinged.

Her vision flickered with flashes of light, and every pull from his mouth intensified the absolute perfection of the assault he was inflicting on everything below her waist. She felt his hand wrap around her throat and squeeze tight enough that it obstructed the air she was already failing to take in.

Sarah’s wrists snapped the leather, and she spun around, clearly surprising him and shoving him to the kitchen counter.

A piece of the countertop broke away with the impact and he growled through a bloody smile when she grabbed a kitchen knife and held the blade against his throat, snarling in his face.

“You fucking amaze me,” he huffed, grabbing her waist. Her other arm swung behind him, sending everything on the counter flying off and crashing to the floor as she put him on his back and dragged the blade across his chest. There was a sharp inhale, and he gripped her hair with both hands when she ran her tongue over the fresh cut and threw the knife across the room.

That taste didn’t last long. He flipped her, towering between her thighs as her head hung off the side of the countertop, his blood dripping dots of crimson across her chest. The siring mark he’d left on her neck tore open when he lowered his head, sending the most painful wave of pure ecstasy through her body as he slammed back in.

There were no boundaries. No shocked expressions.

No threat of having her door slam after going too far.

Just this…just them and that insanity that drew them together.

That delectable amount of crazy that leveled them both.

The equalizer that Sarah had told Wren she never thought she’d find in another person.

What would it have mattered if someone else had been the reason they ended up on each other’s radar?

They were here. They were together. Any elaborate plans John Allan had where her life was concerned wouldn’t diminish what they had in one another.

This was her mate . Her anchor to keep her grounded and safe, no matter how dark and blissfully damaged they seemed.

Something rare and perfect even without any control.

Especially without the control.

The last time he’d fed from this spot on her body, he’d stolen something so precious.

It was that split-second moment that changed everything .

Sarah had never tattooed over it like she had initially planned.

Though he never did ask her, a part of Athan wondered if she had decided not to after learning the truth about his past, and what that scar on her neck meant about them now that they’d realized they were mates.

He had made another split-second decision now…

re-opening that scar and giving it a new meaning.

Giving her that ‘everything’ that she had once told him she wanted to give him .

His soul, his heart…his control…his entire existence.

Even if that current existence was just a touch mad at the moment, some deep part of him knew she could feel it while he took in that decadent surrender of her rare blood…

and that paradise between those tattooed thighs that made everything around them completely insignificant.

That labored scream.

Those fingers threaded in his hair.

The way his name sounded coming out of that bloody mouth.

God, she’d broken out of that belt like it had been made of wet spaghetti.

And the way she manhandled him and sliced him like a Christmas ham with that knife?

That might have been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his entire fucking life.

To be as old as he was—that was saying something.

In all the crazy shit they’d done since the first time they’d come after each other, the delirium that she had otherwise matched in him tonight, only amplified every unbound moment in between.

Athan drew back from her neck, replacing his mouth with a hand and keeping her head suspended over the side of the countertop while he hooked his thumb over her bottom teeth.

His other hand gripped her thigh, and he gave no space for her body to slide away, curling himself over her on his knees, and letting the rest of that control slip.

The only other sound than the harsh pounding of their bodies were the guttural curses and moans that sounded like they’d been dragged through a mile of broken glass.

By the time they’d both ended up bloody, naked and heaving on the floor between the kitchen area and what they considered the living room, neither one could remember exactly how they had destroyed this entire apartment.

There were several places on the walls that would have to be repaired.

Glass, and the stone from the countertop scattered over the floor.

Bloody handprints were smeared across cabinets, and likely every other spot in the kitchen.

Athan spotted a couple on the front of the fridge.

Wads of hair—his and hers—were laying close by where Sarah laid against his chest on the floor, trying to get her breath.

He curled an arm around her back and tried to get a handle on his own breathing, which seemed more difficult than it had been in a while.

He stretched and extended one of his legs as he turned his face to the ceiling and recalled every second of the many times in the past few minutes that they’d both unraveled.

There had never been a time in his entire life that he’d felt this good.

Especially after willing that firm grip on his control loose, and letting the monster take over.

He thought it would be more terrifying. Or that it would terrify her .

Neither one of those things happened. There were several times he knew damned well he’d hurt her tonight, but God—she loved it.

Fed off of it. It was like throwing the whole can of fuel to an already raging inferno.

Would she ever stop surprising him like this?

“Sarah…” his voice cracked with exhaustion…which made even less sense. Sarah raised her chin, and he felt her eyes on him but he continued to stare at the planks of the ceiling. “I—I hurt—”

“Yeah, you did. And before you go back to being ‘Mr. Nice Guy’, just know that I’ve never fucked like that in my life, and if you ever hold back on me again, I’ll hurt you .”

Athan couldn’t stifle his chuckle, and drew her closer, shaking his head. “Christ, we have issues.”

Sarah giggled then, resting her head back on his chest. “Well…I’d argue that if other people can’t find it in themselves to find that absolutely satisfying?

Then they’re the ones with issues. I’m actually a little upset that our battle wounds have already healed.

” She trailed a fingertip down a bit of dried blood that should have held a nasty cut beneath it.

“That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Athan exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “I should be worried that the rage you had when you turned that knife on me, turned me on…but I’m not.”

“Well, I should be worried that I didn’t mind at all having my face shoved against broken coffee mugs on the floor while you ripped out my hair and blew me out from behind, but…

here we are.” They both snorted, and Athan reached for his cigarettes that had fallen out of the pocket of his jeans close by.

“There’s only one thing just as good as the rest of this madness,” he countered, lighting one.

“Cigarettes after sex?”

“Exactly,” he smiled, passing it down to her while she rolled onto her back beside him, still nestled on his shoulder. That smile lingered and he trailed lazy strokes over the new tattoo on her ribs. “You almost broke the refrigerator.”