Leo was standing at the threshold, still in his unbuttoned shirt, breeches, and boots. Prim sat up in the bed, the covers pooling around her. She barely recognized the man invading her room as her husband. The Duke was completely gone and, in his absence, a feral being took his place.
He didn’t speak, his mouth stubbornly closed, and in the light that the fireplace provided, she could see a dark look in his eyes.Speech refused her, too, stunned by the spectacle before her to utter any question. Leo didn’t come here to talk.
He crossed the room in three long strides and stood at the foot of her bed. He pinned her with a look that was lethally focused, dark, and intense. Prim felt like prey cornered by a predator. All she could was stare and breathe.
Without taking his eyes off her, he got rid of his boots and almost tore his shirt off. The top buttons of his breeches hang open, letting her see the deep V of his muscles, the dark leading to the outline of his manhood against the fabric.
Then he descended upon her. He pulled the covers off, and he climbed on the bed. One knee sank beside her hips, and the other between her thighs. He loomed over her, his look searing into hers. His hand moved up, not to cradle her face, not to frame her with tenderness. His fingers curled around the column of her throat, her pulse fluttering like a trapped bird against his skin. Leo asserted his control over her, slowly leaning in, his eyes demanding attention.
When he finally kissed her, it was a claiming. It was a hard, desperate, brutally thorough kiss. His lips moved over hers with a ruthless hunger that made her gasp. His tongue darted inside, tasting her, lapping her up, all while the hand at her throat held her perfectly still for conquest.
Her body lit up from the hair on the top of her head to her curled toes. She moved her hands to touch him, but he caught her wrists and pulled her closer. With one swift move, she was onher back on the soft mattress, and he was caging her, her hands trapped above her head.
“Who do you belong to, Prim?”
His voice was with a raw scrape of sound, low and guttural. Prim could only stare up at him, her lips swollen from the brutal kiss, her body humming with awareness. And yet her mind offered only a white void, stunned by this man who looked like her husband but who claimed her like a savage.
The lack of an answer urged him on. With a loud growl, he fell on her neck, paving a flaming path to her neck, leaving open-mouthed kisses, nipping at her skin, and licking to smooth it out.
“Ah,” Prim couldn’t take the attack.
He took that as an encouragement and found that spot where her shoulder met her neck. He scraped it with his teeth slowly, warning her of what was to come. Then he sealed his mouth over it and sucked, hard and deep, pulling her very flesh into the heat of his claim.
“Mm!” The moan was ripped from Prim, dazed by the thin line that separated pleasure and pain.
He released the spot with a wet sound, and he lifted his head just enough to look at his work, at the reddened patch of flesh. He admired his handiwork with wild satisfaction. That would leavea purple mark on her skin, one that spoke that his lips were on her skin, a primitive mark of possession.
Then his gaze locked back onto hers, more demanding than before, as if this branding spurred him more.
“Say it, Prim,” he roared.
She looked up into his eyes, eating her up, greedy and hungry. Like this over her, half naked, intimidating, as she had never seen him before, he looked like an animal ready to hunt her down if she decided to run.
But she had no intention of running. Prim didn’t know what birthed that side of him, and she knew deep down that it was something cruel, but Leo, like this, made her body come alive. Darkly, against all logic, she craved him even more like this.
He moved so fast that Prim got whiplash. He released her wrists, pulled her to her knees, and turned her, her back glued to his front. His fingers tightened around her neck lightly, and her body arched into him. The sight of Prim completely surrendering to him seemed to strip him of the last strand of restraint he had. His fingers released her neck and went down her collarbone. He seized the lace of her nightgown from behind her. With a single, violent pull, he tore it down the front. The fine linen gave way with a soft, tearing sound, baring her to the waist.
When the cool air hit her bare skin, Prim acted on instinct. Her back arched, her thighs ground against him, and her eyes rolled back.
Leo kept his eyes on the side of her face, and she turned to meet his gaze. His palm mapped the way on her exposed breasts, one hand firmly digging into her hip. Then he cupped one breast, kneading it lightly before pulling her back and leaning down. He took the ready nipple in his mouth, sucking fiercely, his tongue licking the tight bud until she cried out.
“Leo!”
“Me, only me,” he said, his hot breath cooling the skin, wet from his kisses.
He was so relentless that he took a double path on her skin. His lips, tongue, and teeth went slowly up. He kissed her back, between the shoulder blades, kissed her neck, nipped on the skin behind her ear. At the same time, his hand took the path that led down, over her stomach, the mound of her center, and then between her legs, at her exposed center.
“Who do you belong to, Prim?”
His fingers teased her entrance with slow, circular motions, while his mouth hovered at her ear. Prim tried to grind against his hand, but his grip on her hip was unyielding, keeping her locked just shy of the release she craved.
“Now, Prim. Tell me who you belong to. Who has your body and your laughter?”
Her eyes focused on him. He looked at her with intensity, half-demanding, half-begging her to admit as much. To release him from a mental cage he had locked his mind in.
“Leo…” she tried.
He captured her lips in a punishing kiss, bruising and harsh. One fluid motion, and his fingers parted her folds and found her bud.
