The implacable force built until she could no longer hold herself still. Pleasure tore through her, her body tightening as the sensation engulfed her in a rush, leaving her shaking beneath him. His fingers didn’t stop, his touch driving her beyond all composure.
“You’re so damn tight.”
“I am so damn tight,” she quipped back in a daze.
“That mouth of yours will be the death of me.” He positioned all that hardness at her entrance, sliding it between her folds. “Now hold on, little flame, it’s my turn.”
Violet had no chance to digest his words before he plunged inside in one deep thrust. Her lungs forgot their purpose for a beat, fingers biting into his shoulders as the sensation claimed her completely.
“Stop!” The command left her lips in a cry.
Drake stopped on top of her. “Christ, Violet. You can’t ask a man to stop in the middle of—” he cut himself off, tucking his face against her neck.
“I want to feel you,” Violet admitted, unable to help herself with this small but bold indulgence. “I want to feel the fullness of you.”
“That damn mouth again.” He inhaled deeply. “Then enjoy it, because once I start,” he moved his lips to her ear and whispered, “pounding you, I won’t stop.”
Shivers erupted all over her body. “Then get moving, sir.”
The man didn’t hold anything back. His hips started to rock, his thrusts deep and picking up pace almost instantly. Violet hooked her legs around his hips, her arms looping his neck as she held on and lost herself in every inch of him.
Blazes. Yes.
Thiswas what she’d burned for. This, with him. It couldn’t be anyone else. It had to be him.
She arched into his pounding. “Be my lover.”
His teeth found the lobe of her ear and bit down. Violet made a sound she did not recognize and pushed into him. Was that a yes? He drove on, harder now, faster, as though the thought of stopping had ceased to exist. His breathing turned ragged above her, his hands digging into her hips.
Violet clung to him, caught in the delightful force of it.
A sound tore from him, and he stilled abruptly, a tense shudder running through him before his weight settled fully into her, chest heaving. She’d never thought a man’s weight could feel so comforting.
“I could stay like this forever,” he said hoarsely.
The moment those words brushed against her skin, an unwelcome face flashed in Violet’s mind. The face of the man who tried to kill Drake. And where she recognized him from.
*
Christ.
He was doomed.
Drake stared at Violet’s sleeping form, at the riot of red hair spilled across the pillow and the pale softness of her skin laid bare in the candlelight. He’d shifted onto his side to ease the pounding of his wound, head braced against his hand, elbow sunk into the mattress. An excuse, if ever there was one, to better watch her. She would no doubt add it to the already lengthy ledger of his faults if she caught him watching her.
Fool.
This was precisely the moment he had warned himself against. Had he not, in this very room, scarcely a few hours ago, sworn, with admirable clarity, that whatever this thing was between them, it would not be indulged. Not fed. Certainly not taken further. He had persuaded himself that distance was necessary. Distance was wise. Drake gave a loud inward snort. Distance was a lie. A lie told to believe desire might be negotiated with. The feeling that rose in him held no trace of humor. His intentions, where she was concerned, led nowhere safe. Yet he could no more deny her than deny himself, her receptiveness leaving him defenseless. Her readiness proved his Achilles’ heel. It left him no ground on which to stand.
He traced a finger over his mark.
Be my lover.
Such bold words for an innocent. And she was a damn innocent. He’d been too far gone to grasp it in the moment, all reason flooding to his cock, but he’d confirmed it afterwards. The blood of innocence on his sheets. She’d never lain with a man. Christ, he’d rutted against her like some wild pup ina dungeon and then took her innocence and she had given no indication. Voiced no concern. Rather, she had placed something rare and cherished into his hands. He was not worth something so precious. Nothing in his life had prepared him to receive it, much less know what to do if he did. What the bloody hell did he do now? His chest tightened. A sharp, deuced sting.
Lover.
Was this how Maxen had felt when he met Calliope? The impossible need to protect something fragile in a world that devoured softness whole. He suddenly had a renewed understanding and sympathy for his brother. He captured a lock between his fingers. How could she sleep beside him so unguarded? Sleep so soundly.
