In a heartbeat, I move. My fingers close around the sharp edge of the blade. She’s too stunned to react as I wrench it from her hand, the metal grazing my bandage. Pain shoots up my arm, but it’s nothing more than a dull backdrop to the surge of control that floods me.
Amid that background, a flash of pleasure cuts through. I grasp her throat before moving my other hand down to hers. Pulling it out of my boxers, I guide it to her lips, savoring her reaction as her eyes grow wide.
She stares at the cum coating her fingers, thick and steaming as it slides toward her palm. My blood blends with it, red bleeding into white, turning the surface into something obscene and mesmerizing. A small smile tugs at her lips as she bites the lower one, savoring the sight.
“You made a mess.” My voice drops, rough and quiet, carrying darkness beneath each word. “Clean it.”
Her cheeks flush deep red, the color rising fast as I move the fingers to her face. Rubbing them against her lips, I force them open.
Her dark eyes hold mine as she opens her mouth and glides her fingers across her tongue before wrapping her lips around them. The blood rushes to my cock at the beautiful sight when she hollows her cheeks, sucking them clean. I watch her swallow before pulling them out, and she leans in, her tongue darting out to lick the remains smeared across her palm.
I inhale, barely holding myself back as she slowly licks off every last drop before letting her hand fall and smashing her lips against my bandaged palm. Chaotically, she licks the blood that keeps flowing down my arm, her breathing turns wild, chest heaving as if the act itself is feeding her.
My hand lingers on her throat, resting lightly, not tightening, simply holding. Possessive. A silent claim that belongs only to me. I study her face, tracing the lines, searching her eyes, probing for the truth hidden beneath that dangerous calm. Every flicker of expression draws me closer to a line neither of us will be able to come back from once we cross it.
I know what I want. But I need to know she wants it too.
And then, I see it, stark and undeniable, like a flare slicing through shadow. That flicker of hunger flares hotter with every heartbeat, a fire that refuses to be ignored. She craves chaos the way I do, drawn to it, needing it. The dull monotony of life ispoison to her; she thrives on the wild, the raw, the moments that make the pulse race and the world shiver.
And I’m ready to give it all to her.
My fingers tighten around her throat as I push her back, our eyes still locked.
“Let me show you therealme.”
Ifeel the fog begin to lift, the weight in my mind splitting apart as the red moon finally breaks through the clouds. My breath turns shallow, a thin thread of air slipping in and out while a bead of sweat trails slowly down my temple. I look up at him, and the sight strikes me like a jolt.
There is something different about him now, something dark and alive, a dangerous pulse of energy radiating from his body as if it has been waiting for this exact moment to surface.
I have never seen him like this before. I never wanted to.
And right now, at this moment, it is the only thing I can look at. The only thing that exists.
The iron tang of his blood still lingers on my tongue, warm and metallic, and somewhere in the back of my mind I can sensethe distant sting of alcohol. The feeling that rushes through me is a high, but it has nothing to do with the drink.
It ishim.
It is the way his touch burns against my skin, sinking into me like wildfire. It is the way he allowed me to take control, the way my blade traced thin, deliberate lines of red across the tan canvas of his neck, each mark a silent surrender that set something inside me spiraling.
We remain silent, and the silence feels intentional, heavy with meaning. Words would only cheapen what’s unfolding between us, because every look, every breath, every shift of our bodies speaks with a clarity no sentence could match. I have spent so long chasing a sensation that could cut through the numbness, something sharp enough to remind me that I still exist beneath the armor I built around myself. And now, staring into his eyes, alive with a hunger that mirrors my own, I realize I have finally found it.
His hand closes around my throat with a grip that is both possessive and precise, a connection that sends a shiver through every nerve. He towers over me, and the way his shadow spills across the walls and ceiling makes him appear impossibly large, a figure pulled from another world, dark and powerful and entirely inescapable.
No one has ever made me feel this kind of connection. I have had every kind of man, every kind of touch, and none of it ever stirred anything real. It was all dull, all lifeless, all forgettable.
But Dante… Dante is something else entirely. He feels like a storm closing in around me, the red sirens in my head warning me to run even as I move closer. The pull between us is magnetic and primitive, a force that strips me to the core. I want to be consumed by it, to see how far he is willing to go and how much of myself will still remain when he is finished with me.
I roll my lips slowly, my eyes fixed on him without wavering. Time stretches in every direction, turning the hours since we arrived into something long and fluid, and yet it still feels far too brief. What thrums in my veins is not a simple desire. It is a high that no substance could ever come close to touching.
His presence engulfs me, making the world shrink until it’s just the two of us. The heat of his body presses close, the gleam in his eyes sharp and alive, the way he licks his lips with raw, hungry intent—it all converges, pressing into me from every angle, filling the space around us until there’s nothing else left.
Slowly, he hooks his thumbs under the waistband of my leggings, pulling them down. His eyes remain fixed on mine, the hunger in them softening, giving way to a silent question.
A smile threatens to break across my face. He doesn’t have to ask, and I don’t have to speak.
I want this. Need it, actually.
Dante leans in, eyes never leaving mine, and presses a tiny kiss to the faint scar near my belly. I draw in a sharp breath, the rush of pleasure colliding with the old, stubborn ache I’ve tried to bury.
