It was both a question and a statement. “Yes.”
He adjusted his position slightly and then, with one hard thrust, pushed into her.
She clutched at his shoulders, needing something solid to hold onto. Wanting to steady herself. He didn’t allow that. Before her body had fully accepted the sheer size of him, he pulled back and thrust somehow deeper. He did it again. And again. He pushed into her with heavy thrusts that scraped her back against the tree and stole her breath. His heavy cock relentlessly stretching her until he filled her completely. Not allowing her any other option but to feel the sheer, brutal power of his body moving inside her.
“I thought you were meant to be a penance, my path to redemption, but you’re not that. You’re pure temptation. You weren’t sent to save me. You were sent to destroy me.”
He was fully dressed. Her thighs gripped his hips, her bare feet braced against the leather of his boots. His belt dug against her belly. She didn’t care.
No.
Shelikedit.
She liked knowing that he wanted her so much he couldn’t even take the time to properly remove his clothes. That he wanted her more than he cared that she came from Toam or that he thought she was a witch. That he wanted her more than he cared about the rules they were breaking. They were both racingtoward something and if they stopped too long to consider it, the quarry would slip away.
The mask he wore was completely gone as he surged inside her. His eyes burned with hunger, his pupils blown wide, bottomless, fixed on her. A wicked snarl twisted his lips. Not calm. Not disciplined. Just as undone as she was. This wasn’t the golden and untouchable soldier. This was Casrian stripped bare, driven past all restraint. The monster he hid behind the uniform.
She liked watching him break.
She liked knowing that he hated how much he wanted her. He’d branded her mother and destroyed her childhood. She knew he wanted to be a good man and she was using that against him—his goodness—to punish him. But she was punishing herself too. Him for what he’d done. Her for what she’d become.
She wanted him to hurt.
She simply wanted him.
She sobbed for release from the bright coiling tension building inside her. She could feel the flex of his muscles through the fabric under her fingertips.
Casrian leaned forward, teeth scraping at her ear, breath ragged. “Don’t you dare hold back.” He pounded into her again and again. “I’ve never had a witch come on my cock before.”
She flinched at the word.
Witch.
She opened her mouth to deny it, but before she could speak, he drove into her again and she shattered, her entire body lifting on a wave of pure bliss and then flying apart.
She cried out, lost, drowning, as her body tightened around him in rhythmic spasms of release. He plunged into her, his pace stuttering. And then he followed her down. A gasp and he buried his face in her neck as his hands tightened around her thighs and he thrust deep, holding himself there as he came. The warm wash of his seed filling her in pulsing blasts.
They froze like that for a long moment, their labored breathing slowing as the heat dissipated into the cool air. A breeze stirred his hair and he lifted his head to stare at her, blinking, as if waking from a dream.
Something raw crossed his face before he ducked his head and looked away from her. He set her legs gently on the ground and turned away, straightening his clothes and running his hand through his hair.
“Fuck,” he said finally when he turned to face her again. “Fuck.Rowan. I…”
He stared at her, silent, but she heard every word he didn’t say.
It shouldn’t have happened. Forget it.
She should have expected it, but it still hurt. Her hands were shaking as she reached for her clothes and started to get dressed.
“Did that break the spell?” she asked before he figured out what he wanted to say.
He stared at her for a long moment and then said quietly, “All of this is the witch’s influence. It’s making both of us want things we shouldn’t. Making you think you can do things that aren’t possible.”
So she was crazy then?
“I didn’t bewitch you,” she said. “And I’m not bewitched either. I’m not out of my mind. I don’t regret anything.”
She pulled her shirt over her head while he watched her with a strange, confused expression on his face.
