“Because if I stay, I ruin you!” he roars. His voice shakes the walls. My body. My heart. “I’ll fucking ruin you, Cassandra.”
I shove at his chest, not out of strength but because the rage and the ache won’t fit inside me anymore. “You already did!” My fists beat against him, pathetic and small against all that muscle, all that fury. “You already ruined me, Dax, and I let you!”
The silence after feels like an earthquake before the buildings collapse and then he snaps.
His mouth crashes to mine so hard my teeth click against his. His hands drag me closer like he’s starving, like he’s drowning and I’m air, like he’s decided if he’s going to destroy me, he’s taking himself down with me.
I gasp into him, but he swallows it, swallows me, devours me like this is the last kiss he’ll ever take and he wants to leave nothing left behind.
It’s not sweet.
It’s not gentle.
It’s war.
His lips bruise mine, his tongue claims me, his breath is whiskey and want and fucking need. His hands grip my waist so tight I’ll wear his fingerprints tomorrow, and my legs betray me, parting, pulling him closer, giving him everything I swore I wouldn’t.
I taste blood. His or mine—I don’t know.
All I know is this kiss is killing me and I’d die a thousand times to feel it again.
When he finally tears his mouth from mine, it’s only to whisper against my lips, ragged and broken—“You’re mine, Butterfly. Always fucking mine.”
And then his mouth is back on me, hungrier, darker, hotter—like the whole world could burn around us and he’d still kiss me into ash.
Chapter Twenty One
Dax
Her mouth still tastes like sin and surrender when I break away, just long enough to drag air into my lungs. My forehead is pressed to hers, our breaths colliding in the ruin of this chapel like prayers nobody’s answering.
Her lips are swollen, wet, trembling. My fucking work.
I shouldn’t want more but I do.
Christ, I do.
My hand slides down, over the slope of her spine, gripping her hip hard enough she gasps. That sound… fuck, that sound makes me harder than I already am. My other hand fists in her hair, forcing her eyes on mine.
“You think I kissed you just to stop there, Butterfly?” My voice is jagged, raw. “No. I’m going to remind you exactly what you walked away from.”
Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t move. Doesn’t run. Brave little butterfly. Stupid little butterfly.
I shove her back against the cracked stone wall, the stained-glass shards crunching under my boots as I cage her in. My hand drags up her thigh, and fuck—my palm freezes.
Smooth. Bare.
My gaze flicks up, locking on hers. Her cheeks burn crimson, but she doesn’t look away.
“You shaved.” It comes out a growl, low, feral.
Her lips part. “Um—yeah?”
I bare my teeth, my thumb pressing harder into the inside of her thigh. “Don’t do it again.”
She blinks, stunned. “What?”
I lean closer, my mouth brushing her ear, my fingers teasing over that soft, forbidden heat until she’s shivering. “That little cunt is mine. If you do anything to it—you ask me first.”
