“I won’t let that happen,” she says, eyes shining with a mix of desireand resolve. “Just…Orion, please. I need to feel all of you.”
Something lethal flares in my gaze, and I allow her to see it. “Once I start, I won’t stop. And I won’t be gentle.”
“Fuck, I hope not,” she whispers, delivering my smug words right back to me, a challenge that unfurls a dangerous current within me.
“Tell me this is what you need,” I beg of her, the grate of my voice scraping the steamy air between us. I hold impossibly still, muscles locked. Teeth gritted hard as my restraint frays.
Her breath turns ragged, wet lashes glinting with each tremulous blink. “I need—” Her voice breaks on the fragile confession. “Hold me tight. I don’t know if I can…otherwise.”
“Fuck.”
I know exactly what she’s asking—and it incinerates the last weak tether to any morality.
There’s a monster in her past, and I want to wrestle with it.
A fiendish craving rears from my depths, a primal beast all but feral to fuck that fear right out of her.
“Even if you want me to stop,” I whisper gutturally, pressing my forehead to hers, “I won’t be able to. You’re going to have to fight me off, little archer.”
I can’t keep holding back these dark urges. She’s going to have to fight?—
And she can’t stop fighting. Not ever.
Water rains over us, the steady rhythm sealing us within this tense moment as our racing hearts crash together, waiting. Daring.
Her chest rises and falls against mine. “I trust you,” she finally says. “It’s what I need.”
And it’s permission enough.
Those simple words eviscerate my control. “Fucking Christ,” I mutter rough against her mouth. Something dangerous and final breaksloose inside me, and I grind hard between her thighs. Her breath catches, eyes fluttering shut as she licks the beads of water from her parted lips, wrenching a low groan from my throat. “Shit, you’re in so much danger, angel. Hold tight to me?—”
Her arms link around my neck just as I shove away from the tile. Hooking her legs around my hips, she clings to me as I snatch the pill case from the counter.
I haul her to the darkened recess of my room. Everything she leaves unspoken, what we both leave unsaid, remains suspended—abandoned in the steam and shadow.
As I lower Collins to the mattress, the pill case slips from my fingers, landing with a soft click to the blanket. Hovering above her, I hold eye contact, making sure she knows exactly who’s about to fuck her.
“Dammit,” I whisper hoarsely, my thumb brushing the rapid pulse of her throat. “I fucking hate that I can’t make this gentle for you.”
Her swallow drags against my palm, her stare unwavering. “You don’t have to be anything else for me. That’s never what I wanted.”
Her confession slices deep. She’s not the one who’s broken. Dangerous cracks spider across my surface. If she sees the breaks, she doesn’t shy away.
My love is woven deep with violence, absence and loss. And still, she holds the intensity of my eyes with stark conviction.
Slowly, I strip off my wet shirt, discarding it somewhere behind me as her wrists remain locked around my neck, as if fearful of losing connection. Her gaze moves over the complex ink lining my body. Across my chest, along my abs, over my arms. Trailing lower, following the shaded lines along the taut diagonal muscles slipping below my waistband.
Her music echoes through me as I hold my place above her. Her pulse an aching staccato that vibrates between her breaths, Euclidean harmonies resonating sweet notes beneath her skin, and I endeavor to learn every hidden melody of her body, measure by exquisite measure.
I reach behind my neck and circle my fingers around her slender wrist. She reflexively twists, testing resistance. I firm my grip, fingertips finding the frantic beat of her pulse.
Counting beats. Counting breaths. Counting in ritual so neither stops.
My gaze fuses to hers, a demand issued by my fierce stare. Her last chance to stop me as I continue to count, seconds stretching, the thrum of my own heart a painful scrape against cartilage, costing me another measure of sanity?—
“Stop counting, Orion. Just fuck me.”
“God damn.” A groan tears loose, raw and guttural. “I’m going to do so much more than fuck you, angel,” I say, my lips pressing a bruising vow against hers. My hand drags down the length of her side, thumb charting every delicate rib beneath her skin. “You’re going to let me worship you. But first”—my voice roughens—“I’m going to reduce you to a beautiful, filthy mess right here beneath me. And you’re going to take it. Every debased thing I do to this divine body.”
