Page 132 of Hellbound

Vale hooked both arms around her waist and ripped her off the ledge, dragging her into the water with him. She kicked and flailed as they surfaced almost immediately. She gasped, wet hair plastered to her face as her shirt and pants clung uncomfortably to her.

He held her tightly as he growled over her lips. “Quite the opposite.”

Again, her heart swelled painfully in her chest. Again, anger and bewilderment followed. The furious lines between her brows rose higher as confusion stole over her features. Without thinking, she delivered a half-hearted slap to his titanium-firm left pectoral. “Don’t play with me.”

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, folding her palm against his chest. Vale’s lips slanted in a smile. “I would never. You’re not a toy.”

“No, I’m just a weapon to you. A knife,” Marian growled. Her cheeks burned as he leaned in closer, molding her body to his.

“The mouthiest knife.”

Then it all went to shit.

Marian surged up on her toes and crushed her lips to his. Vale immediately snaked an arm around her shoulders as the other slid up her throat, forcing her head back and mouth open. Marian gnashed her teeth and pulled away when his tongue found hers, but Vale didn’t let her get far. He fisted a hand in her hair and held her firmly as he descended on her like a storm. Unyielding. Ravenous. As if starved for the very air she exhaled.

When he finally broke away, she couldn’t think straight. Her lips were swollen, and low in her belly, a fiery ache grew. Need consumed her, messy and raw and tangled up in urges she didn’t understand.

His voice, suddenly molten, dropped an octave. “Tell me to stop and this ends now.”

Is that what she wanted? No. She … she wanted to be wanted. Wanted him—the monster that he was, and that terrified her. She wanted to feel, to give into the bizarre attraction she’d denied and satisfy this hunger once and for all. To indulge in fantasy even if it meant proving him right.

But she didn’t need it to feel good. Her conscience would like it better if it didn’t.

You’re sick.

“Fuck me,” she gasped. “Make it hurt.”

Vale’s gaze dropped to her lips, his eyelids heavy. He tugged her head back further, baring her throat. Her whole body tensed as she braced for him to do exactly as she’d asked, her heart shrinking in anticipation. She waited for him to do something. Anything.

Instead, he searched her face, his clear blue eyes burning with open yearning she’d never seen before in him. Silence stretched on, and for a moment, he appeared conflicted.

“No,” he rumbled as turmoil turned into dark determination. “You’ve had enough pain for one lifetime.”

Before Marian could form an argument, he dragged her through the water to the alcove under the small waterfall—just large enough for them both. He pushed her through the curtain of water and lifted her onto the rocky ledge.

“What the fuck?” Marian squawked, drenched again. “What are you doing?”

He grabbed the waistband of her sodden pants and dragged them off her hips and down her legs in one fluid motion. Marian shrieked and clamped her thighs together. He pried her knees apart and draped them over his shoulders.

“I’m going to make you come, my leiah.” His fingers blazed twin trails from the insides of her knees to the delicate skin at the junction of her thigh and center. “And I won’t stop until you ask me nicely. ‘Please’ is your word. Remember it.”

Marian let out a strangled gasp as he pulled her underwear off and down a leg moments before he parted her. All the air spilled out of her in a strangled gasp as his fingers grazed the feverish flesh between her thighs. “Vale, this isn’t what I—”

When the pad of his thumb found that bundle of nerves she’d not touched in years, Marian had to clasp both hands over her mouth to muffle her whimper.

Vale’s disapproving growl was her only warning before ribbons of shadow emerged from nothing. They slithered up her body and encircled her wrists, prying them away from her face and pinning them to the rough stone ceiling. The hand not probing her cunt stroked her thigh.

“I didn’t endure months of your insults for you to hold back all the lovely sounds I knew you’d make for me.”

She yanked against his shadows, but there was no give. She was bound, exposed, and so utterly at his mercy. A heady mixture of desire and fear smothered her thoughts, leaving her shivering as he parted her folds. A dark thrill coursed through her—a new flavor of desire she’d never experienced in her waking life. No one had ever tied her up before. No one had ever touched her so expertly, so leisurely, as if savoring every second of pleasuring her. On and on it went until old fear reared its ugly head alongside it. Inadequacy and shame followed suit, reminding her of how this, too, would fail.

“I haven’t … I can’t.…” I can’t come. She hadn’t in years, and she’d not tried since she’d quit the medications that killed her libido. But intimacy had been a minefield long before the drugs.

Vale ignored her, undeterred as he slipped a long finger inside her. When his lips closed over her clit, Marian forgot how to speak. He worked her tight muscles with slow, leisurely strokes while his tongue brought her to ruin.

Marian slowly adjusted around him. It almost hurt, but she welcomed the stretch. When he found the spot inside her so sensitive that it made her legs seize and hips buck, she stopped caring about the sounds she made. Self-awareness flew out the window as Marian hurtled toward a terrifying precipice. Her thighs quivered over Vale’s shoulders.

“My poor leiah,” he crooned as he raised his head and licked his lips, bringing her back down to Earth just a little. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” He planted a kiss on the inside of her thigh. “Is that why you’re so tight? Does It hurt?”