A small, distant, foreign part of me despises it. She wants to fight it, but I can’t be bothered. I’m so empty, and Abaddon is what I can use to fill the void growing inside me. Even if it isn’t love—even if I don’t love him back.
So I meet his kiss with zeal, unrestrained and insatiable.
Radiating desire even stronger to me, his lips have to fight with my own for control. His hand slips under my rear, pulling me up into the air while my legs wrap around him. My back is slammed into a nearby wall with excessive force, but I hardly notice the pain. Not with his hands roaming up my sides, his lips slipping down to my neck, his mouth passionately sucking on my skin. A moan slips out of me, and I don’t evencare who hears it. With my nails digging into his neck, I’m carving Hell into my Heaven.
“Let me claim you,” he breathes, his voice ragged. “Right now.”
I want to abandon everything but desire. Only desire. Only pleasure. No more emptiness.
“Do it?—”
The words are barely out of my mouth before he’s carrying me into the nearest weight room. By the time he sits me down on a bench, I’ve thrown my cloak onto the ground, and my top soon follows.
There’s something ravenous and feral in his eyes, frozen as he watches me stripping. Pulling my pants off, my underwear. I don’t even bother with the boots. I just need skin on skin. It’s unlike me to be so desperate, but I don’t care. I need him.
Not want, butneed.
“You are the only selfish thing I’ve ever done.” He trails a hand down my leg, bringing chills across my skin. “From the second I laid eyes on you, I wanted you all to myself. Even if I didn’t want to admit to it, you already had my devotion. Now I will claim every inch of you.You belong to me.”
The tip of his wing touches my chin, lifting it so that I look him directly in the eyes. “I want you to say it. Say who you belong to.”
Darkness begins to cloud my vision. I’m losing my grip on reality. If there was a part of me that didn’t want this, she’s long gone now. All I want now is pleasure. His pleasure. My pleasure. Nothing else.
“I belong to you, Abaddon.”
I wake up to an erection threatening to enter me.
My eyes flare open.
I’m in a bedroom. Abaddon’s bedroom. Naked and previously unconscious. On instinct, I scatter away from him, rolling over in bed to face my company.
“Good morning, my love.” He greets me with a lazy smile, seeming perfectly content.
My pulse skyrockets in sheer panic.
The last thing I knew, I was training, and Abaddon… well, he showed up, and we fucked in the weight room. I remember that much, but it’s hazy. The rest blurs into a void of nothing, and I have no clue how or when I got to his bedroom.
“We…” I trail off, uselessly trying to swallow the dryness in my mouth. “We had sex.”
“All through the night, yes.”
His eyes roam over me, darkening when they fall on my bare chest. Self-conscious, I pull the sheet over myself, even if my skin is slick with sweat. Even if it’s a million goddamn degrees in here.
How many times did we do it? I feel so unwell, like the life’s been sapped out of me. Every muscle aches, and my vagina feels like it’s been through a shredder. Then lit on fire. Itburns.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did.” He props his chin on his elbow. After a moment’s pause, his pleasant expression drops, reversing itself. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I answer too quickly. “I think I’m just, um, still recovering from being sick. And very sore. Could you possibly get me some water? Maybe some food, too?”
“Right, yes. You must be famished. That is most insensitive of me.” He crawls out of bed, baring his naked ass to me before putting on some loose trousers. “I’ll be back promptly.”
After he leaves the room, I count to ten, then barrel out of bed.
I come so close to fainting from that idiotic maneuver. Black spots consume my vision, my ears ring, and I slump against the side of the bed in a last-second effort to keep from hitting my head.
Breathing deeply, I slide all the way down to the floor.
It takes me a moment to recollect myself, and though it’s a struggle to keep from vomiting, I warily spread my legs open to investigate. The gaps in my memories, the marriage, the sickness… and now there’s dried blood between my thighs. Blood in the most private of places, and I have zero recollection of how it got there.
