My hands squeeze her arms, and I have to keep from using bruising force. The pressure in my chest is building so quickly, I fear my ribs will blow open in a matter of minutes.
Oh fuck. She’s giving herself to me. If I bite her, everyone will always know she’s mine. My balls tighten at the thought of seeing my teeth imprinted into her flesh as I fuck her.
My nose slides over her collarbone as I take a shuddering breath I don’t need.
She’s right. We need to do this for our engagement. And then after I take the throne from my father, she would still be mine. I’d be hers.
She doesn’t have to mark me the same way. I’m already fucking hers, body and soul.
“I know you want it,” she whispers in a ragged voice.
What she says stops me cold.
Underneath her words, there is resentment, or maybe disgust. It turns my stomach.
I release her so fast, she stumbles.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Her eyes turn round as the ‘O’ of her lips. She’s dazed from my about-face. The gown strap dips, revealing a pert, pierced nipple. I swallow hard, ignoring her state of undress and my raging needs.
“I’ll tell you what I’mnotdoing,” I say with a cold stiffness that sets up in the core of my being. “I’m not going to let you think you are just some blood bag to me.”
Cinder’s eyes narrow and I know before she even opens her mouth she’s about to hit below the belt. “You’re afraid ofyourself. Your own power. So instead you throw away all your real power and pretend you are this shallow well. That you’ve never had a real thought and you are only good for a fuck and a good time. Prove me wrong. Show me you can do this.”
I try to laugh it off, but my face is tight and a weight presses down on my chest.
“I’m afraid of myself? Well, you’re afraid ofeveryone else. You don’t even trust your close personal friends. I can see that, so I bet they can too. How can they miss that you always hold a part of yourself back? No matter how much you love them, you are always waiting, expecting them to turn on you. You’re waiting for them to let you down, betray you, leave you.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she hisses.
“No? I know you suffered inhuman torment and pain at the hands of monsters after your father died. That even before that you were so lonely you feared you’d cave in on yourself from the hollowness that loneliness carved out of your soul.”
Was I talking about her anymore? Yes and no.
“But then you got out, and instead of fully living you protect yourself from inside the safety of a fragile, hollow shell.”
Accusation and hurt glint in her eyes. “I am not fragile, and I’m not hollow.” Her words come out in a ragged rasp.
I’ve hit the mark and she hates me for it. I don’t blame her.
“Yes, you are and it’s fae fucking beautiful. You sayIpretend nothing bothers me? Well, we have that in common, my little black parade. You pretend nothing can get to you. But we are both two live nerve endings, so sensitive the slightest real touch hurts us so deeply, so ferociously, that we think we might die.”
My lips hover over hers now. Our breaths mingle, though I have no true need to pant like I do. But she makes me feel like my heart is beating, like my blood could boil.
I’m laying everything I feel at her feet, and it feels like dying. Like jumping over the Midnight Cliffs, plummeting toward thewaves of ice water crashing over jagged rocks that will gore me in moments.
In my head, one thing repeats over and over as I glare down into her flaming violet eyes.
Let me love you. Let me love you. Please, fuck, let me love you, Cinder.
“I’ll never break you. Not even when you beg me too.”
Even as I say it, I question if it’s a lie. Could someone like me promise anything like that?
Fear fills her eyes as they search mine.
I take a step back, too affected by our proximity. “This started out as a transactional agreement, but you didn’t know what you were agreeing to,” I say coolly.
“Yes, I do.” She sighs with exasperation, shooting me the purple death.
