Brisk night air cooled her bare flesh as he snatched her wrists in a single hand, then drove them up over her head. Metal clinked as he unfastened his belt and she began panting against the wall.
No one she’d been with had ever understood how much she needed this. How roughly shewantedto be treated. But Roninhad always known. Even now, at his mercy and with his foul threats ringing in her ears, her core was molten. Aching for this.
Aching forhim.
She bit her lip to cage a groan as Ronin rubbed the swollen head of his cock up and down her slit from behind. He pushed in slowly,tooslowly, hovering just inside her entrance.
“Please,” she begged.
He licked up her throat, then bit down on her earlobe, his hot breath tickling her sensitive skin. A shudder pounded through her body as he growled a command into her ear, “Don’t you dare fucking come until I say so.”
He thrust into her. Hard enough that she nearly passed out at the delicious pain. She had just enough breath to support the moan that blasted up her throat.
“Louder.” He set a bruising pace, then latched his fingers into her mouth, fish-hooking her cheek. Saliva spilled down her chin. “Fuckinglouder. Let the entire city hear you howl for me.”
The fingers of his other hand dug into her hip as he bounced her off his cock, using her body to get himself off.
But this was not about pleasure. This was about possession. Ownership. Ronin staking his claim to what had been rightfully his for centuries.
Her clit throbbed at the thought, and she slipped her fingers between her thighs. He snatched her wrist and smacked her palm against the bricks.
“Don’t,” he snarled, pumping into her in time with his commands. “I told you—”thrust“—not to—”thrust“—fucking come.”Thrust. “This pretty cunt is mine. I’ll decide if she gets what she needs.”
Footsteps of the city’s night owls echoed beyond the alley. Maybe some were even lurking out there, watching them. Watching Ronin use her body. Her nipples tightened beneath her shirt and part of her wished he’d stripped her totally naked.Let everyone see her shame, see how wet and needy she was for the male who’d killed her father. The male who’d left her in this prison to rot.
The male who’d brokenherheart as well.
Ronin’s hand on her hip tightened, and his thrusts became frenzied. He was nearly there. He coasted a hand up her spine and grabbed a fistful of her hair. “Tell me you hate this.”
“I hate it,” she moaned, palms flat against the wall, hips canted to let him in deeper. “I hateyou. So fucking much.”
So much that she didn’t hate him at all.
“I hate you, too, love,” he whispered, then latched his fangs to the back of her neck, holding her in place as he drove into her.
He circled a gentle fingertip across her tender clit and she exploded. Came so hard that the entire alley disappeared. And moaned his name loudly enough that every prisoner within a hundred-foot radius likely heard her.
A strangled groan tore past his teeth, heating her neck as he spilled into her. He collapsed against her back, and she rested her face atop her folded hands on the wall.
The gossamer-light caress of his lips across the back of her neck was so gentle she wasn’t even sure it was real.
He pulled out of her, a long, luxurious slide, and shoved away from the wall, his seed oozing down her inner thigh.
She didn’t turn as he pulled up his pants, refastened his belt, then tossed her cloak against her back.
He slipped out of the alley, leaving her to stew in the mess they’d made. The mess she’d asked for.
She glanced down at her feet, at the ruined silk shreds that used to be her panties.
Once upon a time, she and Ronin had been two fractured souls who’d found comfort in each other’s damage.
But how could they ever find comfort in the damage they’d done to each other?
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The autumn afternoon outside Leonard’s cottage was as crisp and bright as Xenia’s mood.
She and Cael had been at the house for several days awaiting word from Tristan through the cuff. Nothing yet, though Xenia was manifesting positive outcomes as she traipsed through the wind-swept fields picking wildflowers.
